Argyle’s loss at Cardiff City on Saturday meant a disappointing end to what was shaping up to be a positive week.
After a bad start to the season, the Greens beat Blackpool at Home Park, and followed up with a very credible 1-1 draw at Swansea City in the Carabao Cup, that raised spirits despite the subsequent loss on penalties.
However, the good feeling ran aground in a different part of South Wales, as Tom Cleverley’s team fell 4-0 at the Cardiff City Stadium.
Shortly before half-time, it was looking as though Argyle would go in 0-0 at half-time, but two quick goals put the league-leading Bluebirds in the box seat.
The first was a superb strike by Ryan Wintle, although the Greens felt strongly that there had been a handball in the build-up. The second, moments later, was a strike by Chris Willock that took a heavy deflection and found its way into the net.
After the break, Rubin Colwill added a third from a similarly deflected effort, and the scoring was rounded off by Isaak Davies in stoppage time.
“I feel a sense of ‘two steps forward, three back’,” said Cleverley, after the game.
“I was a little bit worried how easily they were getting into our half. We were thinking of ways that we could maybe get more pressure on their bottom line, in transition. We didn't show the same quality as we did in the week.
“A handball, and then two deflected goals, and we're completely out the game.
“But listen, I'm not saying the referee or, a little bit of luck on our side, was going to change the result today. We got beaten by a better team in terms of quality and a team who did the basics, in my opinion, better than us today.
“When you are clearly behind in terms of quality, where do you bridge that gap? That's with all the basics, all the small details. We were second best in that today as well. Hence, the result is a really convincing one.
“There's a fragile mentality, for sure. We need to try to keep a lid on that. We’re a team that you can see are low in confidence. They're a team who struggles to deal with setbacks. We're a team maybe full of a lot of young players trying to prove themselves at this level, so there's a few insecurities around that as well.
“It’s difficult to come back from setbacks at the minute because of that mentality. We have got to try to help the players with that, and try to help the environment. That starts by sticking together.
“If you take the two performances as a whole, at Lincoln and Cardiff, we've got exactly what we deserve both times.
“The application was there to keep going, and then in and around the box, we've just not got enough quality at the minute.
“We work really hard on our final product. We always want to have purpose to what we do; it obviously needs more because when we get around the opposition box at the minute, we're nowhere near as productive as we need to be.
“We need to stay together. We need to push on now and take two steps forward next week. Then, after we do that, we need to remember this feeling.
“We don't get too complacent. We don't come off our work, and come off the basics, because going three steps back hurts.”
