Argyle Under-18s are looking to return to winning ways on Friday afternoon when they travel to Barnet for EFL Youth Alliance South action.
The Greens suffered a 6-1 defeat in their opening home game of the season, but now return to the road hoping to repeat the winning performance seen against Wycombe Wanderers last month.
Head Coach Jamie Lowry hopes an important period of consideration, conversations, and hard work in training can help move his side in the right direction as they head further into the busy campaign.
“We had a really big reflection on Monday [after Stevenage],” Lowry told Argyle TV. “All staff and players sat down and addressed a couple of issues, and discussed how we want to start moving forward. We spoke about dealing with setbacks and how that had been a big thing since the start of the season - when we conceded goals and had a wobble for five or 10 minutes. We’ve now addressed it.
“The boys have trained really well on Monday and Tuesday, and hopefully that's one of the things that starts to sink in and stick with them, but it's important that they know that we're all in it together. It's not just their journey; it's our journey together.
“We keep talking about how they have ownership, and they need to be accountable for their actions, but we're here to support as well, and we're along that journey with them to support them as much as possible. It’s essential that we now take forward steps, just as we did with the Wycombe game.
“There have been positive performances and positive steps forward, but we need to make sure we keep stepping forward and not taking one step forward and two steps back. In football, anything can change with a couple of wins. We’ve got two home games coming up after this, which are always important for us.”
Barnet sit on the same number of points as Argyle in the Southern league table, but have played one fewer game than Lowry’s side, leaving the Argyle Head Coach expecting a tough challenge away from home.
He said: “They’re a very forward-thinking team and want to play and run forward very quickly. The three centre-backs want to go and join in the attack as well, so we've got to be able to track the runners really well.
“We’ve got our game plan and spoke about how it's important that we try and implement that game plan and try and win the game, by playing the right way in possession and being nice and aggressive out of possession to regain the ball as much as we can.”
