Argyle’s poor run of form continued at Huddersfield Town, as the Greens fell to a 3-1 defeat at Accu Stadium.
It was a fifth consecutive defeat for Tom Cleverley’s team, a fourth in a row in the league, and when things are so bleak it is natural to look for the any-port-in-a-storm approach. Therefore, the more brazenly optimistic Pilgrims among us could, with some justification, point to the fact that, around five minutes before half-time, with the score at 0-0, Argyle were at least giving as good as they were getting.
That said, the bar for these sort of things is getting to dachshund-level proportions, never mind a terrier, or beyond. In an opening 40 minutes which the Greens shaded, they never really looked like carrying a significant attacking threat.
Also, games do not last 40 minutes, that is an arbitrary figure conjured up because, to that point, things were going…not well, necessarily, but not that badly.
And then Huddersfield woke up. A couple of chances preceded Bojan Radulovic’s opening goal, which took the home side in a goal up at the break. Ineffective Argyle then could not wrestle their way back into the game, and saw it drift from them when Dion Charles made it 2-0 and later Cameron Ashia making it three. Lorent Tolaj’s late goal made the scoreline look more palatable on an infinitesimally small scale.
“I thought we had a certain amount of control in the game up about the 40th minute,” Cleverley told Argyle TV after the game. “Then, they had two or three good chances in a row and eventually managed to break us down. It was a really disappointing time to concede the first goal.
“Again, we are creating openings that are not developing into chances. That’s coming from a lack of belief, a lack of quality. We created two or three openings in that first half where we were running one-v-one or two-v-two towards their box, and it doesn’t even end in a chance at goal.
“We have to try to build the players up mentally, rebuild their confidence, make them believe in themselves a little bit more, as well as give them the license to express themselves, which they should feel.
“In the second half [Huddersfield] were just a far more effective football team. We had our fair share of the ball, but were we as effective as them with that? Absolutely not. We need to learn how to be more effective.
“They’re not poor players, these guys. They are suffering from [a lack of confidence], they are suffering mentally, and there’s only one way to get through that, which is to work as hard as we can, be as professional as we can.”
For the game, Cleverley made another tweak to his starting approach, making four changes and playing with a shape which began life with a four-at-the-back foundation, with the aim of morphing when playing with the ball.
“You always try to find an answer,” said Tom. “I’d rather be much more consistent than we are, because that means the system is really efficient, and the group of players are really consistent within that. When that’s not the case, and the team is not picking itself, you have to chop and change that a little bit, a bit more than is ideal.
“We felt that today that was the right thing to do, with a 4-4-2 block. That’s a bit more demand on your back four, but we should be able to cope with that a little bit better than we are doing. In possession, it becomes a 3-4-3. We got into good areas, but we were a little bit toothless.”
