Argyle Head Coach Tom Cleverley expressed a twofold frustration with his side’s 4-1 home defeat against Lincoln City.
The Greens started brightly, with a superb goal from Bim Pepple putting them ahead early on. However, Lincoln equalised via Freddie Draper before half-time, and Argyle lost Pepple, too, with a head clash leading to a cut above the forward’s eye, which quickly swelled up and rendered his right eye closed.
In the second period, the division's form team, Lincoln, played to their strengths. Their physical approach, laced with strong set-pieces, yielded three more goals, two from Reeco Hackett, and a very late coup de grace from Ryan Oné.
Seeing Pepple forced off was another blow for Cleverley, who has seen many players sidelined of late, but his initial reaction was more his frustration about his remaining players failing to execute their gameplan in the second period against the Imps.
“I'm disappointed,” Cleverley told Argyle TV after the game. “I thought we went absolutely away from what's made us successful recently, in the second half today. Why that is, is my job to find that out; whether it was the personnel, whether it was intensity levels. But, structurally, we weren't set up well enough to play the style of football we want to play. That is: edge-of-the-seat football, front foot and aggressive.
“Don't get me wrong, we were playing against a team who's probably the best at that style of football in the league, but I thought we competed, I thought we matched them, and I thought we probably edged the first half. But, we went completely away from it in the second half.
“The approach of what's made us really effective recently has been a little bit more direct, maybe a little bit less risk at the bottom line, because we were playing like that earlier this season, we had no purpose behind that play. [In the] second half we went back to what we were at the start of the season, which is a strange one - and it was a bit of a shock.
“Now we just have to make sure, come Tuesday when the players are back in, that we're all on the same page as to what we are and how we are effective, how we are entertaining, and how we are winning. We came far, far away from that today.
“[Pepple going off injured] spoiled the momentum for us because, when you want to be a little bit more forward thinking, there's not many better at Bim than being that target man, that physical presence, running in behind. I thought he was excellent in the first half and [him going off] was a factor [in the second-half performance].
“It seems to be the curse of the goalscorer for this club at the minute. [Brendan] Galloway starts scoring and he's gone, then Pepple, and Tolly (Lorent Tolaj). The injuries are really, really hurting us at the minute. They're in key areas, they're all potential starters and it's difficult.
“We've got far too many injuries. We're asking the same guys to play every week with knocks, with niggles. We can get fitter as a group.
“I would have loved a full squad to attack these fixtures. I would have loved to have gone at this group of fixtures with our best guys available. It's been disappointing that we're not going to see where we're at in terms of what is our best level, because we've got seven, eight starters missing and it's too much.”
