Accentuate the Positives

DEREK Adams believes that, despite the Pilgrims’ slow start to the season, Argyle are in decent fettle, and he wants the Green Army to share his optimism.

The Pilgrims go into Saturday’s early Westcountry derby at Bristol Rovers still searching for their first Sky Bet League One win of the campaign. 

The Argyle manager is as eager as the supporters who have gobbled up the away ticket allocation at the Memorial Stadium to secure a first three-pointer of 2018-19. Regardless, he believes the club has made great strides since his appointment in June 2015, with significant progress on and off the field, and at all levels on the playing side. 

“We are in a very good position at this moment in time,” he said. “The structure of the football club over the last three years is a lot better on the footballing side; we showed that the other night in the Premier League Cup, and the first team is in League One. We want to continue to be there. 

“We’ve got a stronger squad this year, than we had last year – there’s no doubt about that. Competition for places is a lot better and that will only help us in the coming weeks. 

“We would like to have more points – there’s no doubt about that. Wins are important, they always are, we have seen that from last season and seasons before. Once we get that win and get moving forward, then we’ll gain confidence from that.

“We’ve got 40 games to play; there’s 120 points to play for. There is a long way to go in the season. Yes, everybody gets worked up wee bit because you haven’t picked up points, but we’ve done well in games and we feel that, in some games, we should have picked up more points than we did. 

“We feel that, at times, we’ve been a wee bit hard done by. We had a penalty claim which was a stonewall penalty against Portsmouth and, one minute later, they go and score – that goes against us. So we just need the tide to turn a wee bit in our favour.” 

Derek’s confident forecast is in contrast to some gathering gloom on social media which he does not read simply because most comment is not – cannot be – fully formed. 

“Some people will be on it that don’t understand the running of a football club,” he said. “They don’t know what’s happening behind the scenes. 

“I’m an outsider. I’ve moved into this area. What I do see sometimes in the area is that it might be sunny and a beautiful day today, but somebody will tell you it’s going to rain tomorrow. That’s something that’s in the personality here which does concern me. 

“If there’s a positive, somebody always wants to get a negative in, which is not a good thing - we’re not positive, positive, positive. That’s something we’ll have to change. 

“At this moment in time, we’re in a situation where we don’t want to be, and, as we’ve shown last year, we’re quite capable of picking up points and getting out of it.”