The stage is set, and the rules of engagement are clear.
Argyle need to beat Northampton Town this weekend, in the Sky Bet League One season’s final game, to have any kind of chance of reaching the play-offs. The Greens also need Stevenage to fail to beat Wigan Athletic at home, and for Luton Town to fail to win in their game at Bolton Wanderers.
The permutations are fairly simple, even if achieving everything may not be so.
In some ways, the game seems gift-wrapped – Northampton are bottom of the league, are already relegated, and have lost ten in a row, while Argyle are into double figures for away wins. That said, we all know how football works, and it does not mean Northampton will be any sort of pushover.
Tom Cleverley watched the Cobblers’ game against Barnsley on Tuesday night, in which Northampton lost 1-0 to Barnsley, and said it showed how such fine margins can still exist.
“The job in hand is to win three points on Saturday with a performance that we've seen a lot of recently. Then, we'll see where that takes us,” Tom told Argyle TV.
“We have one objective. It'd be fairly sort of strange seeing a team, for example, away from home, drawing the game, but sending the goalkeeper [forward]! We hope the goals we've been scoring, the performances we've been putting in, we can have a convincing win, but the work that I saw Northampton put in against Barnsley in the week, it's highly likely it's not going to be the case.
“We're going to have to work hard for it. We're going to have to be intense and aggressive as we have been and then show our quality. First and foremost, the basics, the fundamentals have to be there to make sure that we carry on this good run of form.
“We have to focus on ourselves and do our principles the best we can to give ourselves the best chance. And that's been working for us really well.
“Now, what to expect from them will be a hard-working side, put a couple of young lads in there who will be enthusiastic, hungry. They’re a team that's changed system quite a lot. Against Barnsley on Tuesday, the game could have gone either way. They created enough chances to score, which is something they've been struggling with.
“I'm not looking too closely at form tables for this. The mentality of our players now is to go to Wimbledon and win comfortably, to be really disappointed with a draw at Bradford and then to win with 10 men for 90 minutes – that’s the mentality of a top team. That will give us a good chance of going places, whether it's in three weeks' time or in a year's time.”
