eSports Preview: Trials Week

Argyle eSports produced their performance of the season to overcome Virtual Pro Gaming (VPG) English Premier leaders Bradford City on Thursday night.

The Greens are only the second side to defeat the Bantams all season, and the 3-2 victory keeps them firmly in the top half.

Manager Ben Taylor said: “We played well. It wasn’t an easy game, obviously. Sometimes, it wasn’t pretty, but we got through it, took our chances, and got the three points.”

While Taylor was rightly delighted with the team’s shock victory, he cannot help but feel a little bit frustrated that his side have struggled all season to maintain consistency.

He said: “It’s bittersweet, in a sense. We know that we are capable of this, and we can beat teams as good as Bradford, but we have dropped points to teams in League One South that are nowhere near that standard.”

Although the Greens are going well in the VPG English Premier, a division made up of many sides who play at a higher level, Argyle missed out on promotion from their regular league, VPG League One South, after failing to recover from a sluggish start to the season.

“It’s tough, because we know we can beat anyone, on our day, and when we don’t beat those sorts of teams, it’s very frustrating,” said Taylor.

“We find that we are at our best in the big games. We know we’ve got it in us to beat the top teams. We need to make sure these standards do not slip in the games where we are expected to win.”

On Monday night, the Pilgrims will look to extend their winning run against Wigan Athletic eSports, who sit two places above Argyle, in seventh place.

“Wigan have started to pick up a bit of form. They started quite slow, but they’re on a good run,” said Taylor. “Hopefully, we can pick up where we left off against Bradford and get three points.”

Despite the games coming thick and fast, Taylor and his colleagues are laying the groundwork to strengthen the squad ahead of the next campaign.

With a second-string ‘Academy’ team recently launched, Argyle eSports are hosting trials, starting after the game against Wigan, to join the team.

Taylor said: “We have had decent numbers indicating interest in having a trial, but we are still looking for more. It’s all about trying to be as strong as possible for the start of the next League One South season.”

“If you are interested, just send us a message and we can get you into the chat. We have quite a few Argyle fans in there with us as the minute, and hopefully they can show us what they’ve got and get into the team.”

Argyle eSports take on Wigan Athletic in the VPG English Premier at 8pm BST. The game will be available to stream live on our Facebook and Twitch channels.

For more information Argyle eSports, or to request a trial, be sure to follow them on Twitter.