Growing Pains

ARGYLE will today go up against a Mansfield Town outfit experiencing a similar level of growing pains as themselves.

Both sides were heavily tipped in pre-season to be challenging at the business end of the Sky Bet League Two table, but underwhelming starts, in both cases, leave the clubs scrapping it out in the bottom half of the division, so far.

However, Argyle manager Ryan Lowe is not reading anything into the Stags’ league position.

“John [Dempster, Mansfield Town manager] has gone in there, another young manager who has been given the opportunity, he’s trying to do it the right way,” said Lowe. “He’ll be saying the same thing as us, it doesn’t happen overnight. He’s had an overhaul of players, about six or seven, and it takes time to gel.

“I’m not surprised at anything, really. The league is a good league. In terms of teams in false positions, yeah, they probably are. But, it’s a case of whether they come good, or not.

“We’ve only really analysed them in the past week, and we only take note when they’re coming up to play us. In terms of where the teams are in the league, whether it’s top 10, or top seven, it’s irrelevant really, for us. We just worry about ourselves, and we’ve got to climb the table as quickly as we possibly can.”

Lowe will come up against a good friend and former colleague Nicky Maynard on Saturday, but he believes they are far from a one-man team.

“We’ll look at what they’ve got, who they’ve got, Nicky Maynard, [Alex] McDonald, Danny Rose, CJ Hamilton, they’ve got plenty of good players – but so have we,” said Lowe. “I want them to worry about us as much as we’ll worry about them. Hopefully we can be a little bit better in the final third than we were last weekend [against Cheltenham].

“We’ll be going to Mansfield full of confidence, we’re creating chances, and we’re hoping to get points.”