Matt Macey Blackpool H 1
GOALKEEPER Matt Macey feels the Pilgrims will soon have their first three-points haul of 2018-19.
The stopper, at Home Park on a season-long loan from Arsenal, believes Argyle have made positive strides in recent weeks is confident their fortunes will soon change.
The Pilgrims entertain Blackpool in Sky Bet League One on Saturday still looking for their opening league win of the campaign, but buoyed by another good performance in a 0-0 draw at Bristol Rovers last time out.
Matt said: “It’s been a difficult start, results-wise; in my opinion, performance-wise, we’ve not been bad in those games. We could have won quite a few games.
“In the game at the weekend, and especially the first four or five games, it could have gone either way. It’s frustrating in that sense, but it gives everyone the feeling that it will change; we just need things to turn our way.
“I think we saw that on Saturday, how we recovered from a tough week the week before. It feels like the team has all the factors it needs to have a successful season, which I’m sure it will be.”
It is impossible not to draw comparisons between Argyle’s slow start to the last campaign which was hindered by a rash of red cards, and this season. The 6ft 7in goalkeeper says that the old heads among the dressing-room, like captain Gary Sawyer and his deputy David Fox, have been on hand to offer solutions toward attempting to climb the table
He said: “Obviously there’s been a lot of change but there are boys who have been here last year. I’m still learning the game and I’ve been asking them: “How did things change last year? How long did it take and were you down the bottom this much?”
“They have given a lot of reassurances to a lot of the young boys; they’ve said it’s similar, but there are ways to get round it. A lot of the time, it’s just luck falling your way a little bit and doing the right things consistently.”
The Bath-born custodian knows that quality runs throughout the team, quality he was exposed to during week one of his Argyle adventure. He is adamant our current league position is by no means a true a reflection of the ability among the squad.
“Results haven’t been what we wanted and that has been surprising for me,” he said. “When I first came in, I saw the quality we had throughout the team from back to front. I think we’ve got immense quality. Given our league position, that is quite surprising; it makes you think we’ll be able to turn it around.”
Matt has faced five penalties already this season as Argyle have tended towards defensive ill-discipline at crucial times, but none of that was on show at the Memorial Ground as he contributed to a first league clean sheet of the season with a fantastic second-half save from Sam Matthews.
“I said after the game that was all I did,” he said. “Maybe one routine save on the angle in the second half as well. That felt like how I was going though games in the first four or five games of the season – bar the penalties they weren’t really testing me too much.
“We were really solid for five games before we had a tough week the week before last where the goals went in. If we defend like that this season as a team, we’ll be absolutely fine.
“Everyone could see how solid we were. You talk about back five but I thought, as an 11, we were really solid – the midfield with G [Graham Carey] in front and Freddie [Ladapo] running his socks of like he does every game – in terms of our shape and how compact we were at times.
“There was a spell at the start of the second half where we were under the cosh and we were really solid. Our fitness came through in the last 20 minutes and we should have won it. It was really nice to feel really confident when everyone in front put a shift in."