After the long build to the opening game of the Sky Bet League One season, for Argyle to lose at home to Stockport County was, fairly obviously, a disappointment.
It was, however, one game out of 46 in the league, and the opportunity to get the first points on the board for Tom Cleverley’s Pilgrims comes on the road, on Saturday, at Wycombe Wanderers.
The Argyle Head Coach reports that his side have bounced back well, in training, to the frustration of the season opener, and that he and his coaching staff have switched focus a little bit prior to the trip to Adams Park.
“The players have responded really well to a poor performance,” Cleverley told Argyle TV. “In training this week, working on things so that we can get better, refreshing things, how we're going to win the game.
“First of all, the mentality; go straight after the mentality of the group. That can be a real learning performance for us. It can be a humbler, but certainly not a confidence knocker. So make sure that the players are mentally still switched on, and confident because it's been since the end of February, I think we'd lost one game of football, Bolton, in six months.
“Now, we've lost two. It's not a disaster. It's an important game we've lost; we understand that and there's a lot we need to learn from that. The mentality of the players shouldn't be too affected.
“We’ve focused a lot on in-possession this week. You try to predict what kind of game you're going to face; with Stockport and their new staff, we knew that they would try to dominate the ball, and it would be important for us to be good out of possession. This week, we flipped that to really show the players that it's about us. It's about us being at our best, controlling what we can and that gives us a good chance of getting a positive result.”
Wycombe finished 11th in League One last season, three places and ten points behind Argyle in the table. The Chairboys have played three games this season, in three competitions. They lost 2-1 at home to Stevenage in the Carabao Cup, drew 1-1 at Blackpool in the league, and then had the same scoreline at Reading in the Vertu Trophy, after which they lost a penalty shoot-out.
Under manager Michael Duff, who took over just under a year ago, Wycombe have added a few players over the summer, perhaps most notably forward Cauley Woodrow, experienced defender Steve Cook, and former Argyle goalkeeper Conor Hazard.
Of Saturday’s opponents, Cleverley said: “[Wycombe are] one of the steady, good sides at this level. You feel at any moment in a season, Wycombe could put a run of ten results together because they've got quality. They've got a manager who knows the division very well. There's a nice mix of youth, experience, pace, intelligence in their team; a good mix of what it takes to be successful at this level.
“I'd expect it to be a tough, real competitive game of football on Saturday where the small margins, those big moments that didn't go our way last weekend, we have to do everything we can to make sure they fall our way this weekend.
“There'll be a lot of stability in terms of the way they're playing. I went to watch their Stevenage game in the cup. I've obviously watched the footage of the game against Blackpool. There's a lot of similarities in style from the team that we saw three times last season.
“I expect a lot of stability in the way they play, small turnover of players, some of them in key positions – a goalkeeper who we know fairly well.
“It's not an easy place to go. You have to be at your absolute maximum, at your best, nail every small detail to the best of our ability to give ourselves a good chance.”
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You can watch Tom Cleverley’s Wycombe Wanderers preview on Argyle TV, in full, here.
