Ahead of Argyle’s Emirates FA Cup opener on Saturday against Wycombe Wanderers, Head Coach Tom Cleverley believes that a good result could be a tonic to his side’s ailing league form.
Last season, starting in the third round, Argyle beat Premier League sides Brentford and Liverpool before falling to giants Manchester City. Although, under Miron Muslic, Argyle ended up being relegated from the Sky Bet Championship, their form was much improved in the New Year, and coincided with the exciting cup run.
Cleverley is clearly a fan of the competition, and hopes his side can progress at Adams Park, but recognises that any development of his team can only come if they tighten up defensively.
“It's fantastic,” he told Argyle TV. “You remember as a kid watching the old bird's-eye view of the coaches travelling to the stadium, the team hotels in the morning and all that. The beauty of the FA Cup's never left me as an individual.
“I got to two finals, and I saw when I was at Villa, a cup run galvanised the club to improve in the league. [It was the] same here at Argyle last year, it almost had that same effect where a positive cup run galvanised the club and you saw that mirrored in the league form.
“First and foremost, it's getting in that habit of winning football matches again.
“I think we're a team who has won seven games this season. Granted, only four in the league, and that's where we'll be judged. But, because it's cup week, we can look at the bigger picture. We've won seven games at the end of October. I've been in clubs and dressing rooms where it's taken a lot longer to get there.
“But what we must not forget that we've lost nine. That's far too many. And why we're doing that starts with one priority and that's being defensively and structurally more solid.
“Defensively, we need to improve - and that's a unit thing. That's not just our defenders. If you could aim a criticism at us as a team, it's certainly that we've conceded too many chances this year. We've conceded soft goals this year.
“Although in the last four games we've not looked at our most creative, we are up there as one of the most creative teams in the league, sixth or seventh in terms of chances, xG and things like that.
“The number one priority is to tighten us up, and the players will take accountability for that as well. There are things that I must look at and address; the structure and the balance - are we getting that right? As well as individual actions, the players will take absolute ownership of it and with those two things, we'll improve.
“It'll be aggressive. [Wycombe has] never been an easy place to go. You expect high tempo, high energy, aggressive football. They're a team who likes to play, so they're not just that. We have to stand up to all those challenges.”
