After Argyle's remarkable 5-2 win over league leaders Cardiff City, Rob McNichol pens his reflections on a weekend that saw Home Park at its very best, and a period that has seen Tom Cleverley's Greens fly up the table...
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Right, don’t panic but, at some point, I am going to embark on a riff about the colours red and white. Bear with me…
First, we start on Friday afternoon, at Manadon Sports Hub. It was the Argyle Community Trust’s five-a-side tournament, raising funds for Project 35. Preparations completed for the following day’s lunchtime kick-off against Cardiff City, two Argyle representative sides headed for Manadon – one consisting of people from the media, marketing and commercial teams, me included, and another largely comprising football staff, including Derek Adams, David Fox, Damon Lathrope, Kevin Nancekivell and Matt Bevans.
Of course, we got put in the same group, and our team of uber-amateurs expected a battering. We were actually proud of the game ending in a narrow 3-2 defeat, to be honest. And we missed a penalty. I won’t reveal who missed it, shooting over the bar, but if you are ever in the vicinity of the office, keep an ear out for the one who has already got the nickname ‘Waddle’.
Despite nearing the age of 42, I still got a child-like kick out of playing in the Argyle home kit. There was a moment, though, in the first game we played, against a team wearing blue shirts, where a ball came to me from the sky (no head-height rules, which was a blessing) and I nodded it down to someone, thinking they were a team-mate, only to realise it was an opponent*. The dark blue of their kit, in my peripheral vision, looked like green to me.
(*Actually, if I’m honest, the header went out of play, because I’m rubbish at football, but that’s not the point)
This was at about 4.30pm on Friday. Fast forward about 20 hours, and I was in the press box having the same issue. Throw in a classic, misty February Plymouth day, and it was really very tricky seeing the difference between Argyle’s shirts and those of Cardiff City. By the end of the game, the easiest way of telling the difference was by the body language – one collection of 11 men looked a bit brow-beaten, surprised to have had their 12-match unbeaten run ended. And they, if you looked closely, had bluebirds on their badge, not Mayflowers.
Argyle scored five goals on a glorious early afternoon in Britain’s Ocean City. The ground was full; the visiting fans making excellent noise, befitting the side deservedly top of Sky Bet League One; the Green Army swelling, vociferous, buoyed by two excellent results on the road, at Blackpool (4-0) and Leyton Orient (3-1).
I’m lucky. I get to do pretty much every game as an Argyle employee, so I’ve been at a clutch of away games lately where we have played superbly and won. I was there when we ground it out at Wycombe, when we reacted to an early setback at Doncaster, when we outworked and outclassed Peterborough, and when we dismantled Blackpool.
Many fans are not as fortunate. They will have been watching or listening on Argyle TV to those victories on the road, and rejoicing in them, but if they are Home Park attendees, they have not had so many good days of late.
Tom Cleverley’s Greens were good against a decent Luton side, and dug out a 1-0. They were much better than Burton, and took that game 3-0. But too often it has been a struggle, things just haven’t clicked at HP like it has in previous years, Mansfield couldn’t be broken down, Lincoln were too strong. And so, the bittersweet life of the Home Park regular, happy with the road form, but wishing they could experience a bit more of it in person, went on.
Saturday, though, was hopefully worth the wait.
I think the best thing about it is that we know Cardiff are a very good side. Occasionally you win a game of football and think: “were we good, or were the opposition not at it today?” Cardiff are really good. The calibre of the goals scored by Omari Kellyman were sublime, and it was clear by the nature of their movement and play that City are a Championship team in waiting.
In fact, the whole day did not feel like a League One game, did it? Not just the quality of football, but the atmosphere, the general vibe, felt like those early days of two seasons ago, when Argyle tackled – and beat – Huddersfield, Norwich, Sheffield Wednesday and others.
It is interesting to chart the pattern of this season via Saturday’s goalscorers. All brought in in different circumstances, different backgrounds, different nations.
Here comes the largely irrelevant vexillology observation: Mathias Ross (Denmark), Lorent Tolaj (Switzerland) and Bim Pepple (Canada) all represent countries who have red and white flags, and they scored for the English team (red and white flag) against a team from Wales, whose flag is red and white and…green.
How does the song go? “Every player of every nationality, when they pull on the green, they’re all Janners.”
All three have been welcomed into the Green Army bosom, and in different ways.
Let’s start with Tolaj. It’s actually a fairly rare thing for Argyle – any team, really – to identify a striker, go out and get them, and they come straight in and start racking up goals. It feels straightforward, but oftentimes you find a player scoring goals for someone, and then you bring them in and it doesn’t happen.
If you go through the annals, you will find that successful Argyle strikers have typically been in the mould of players struggling to get games in a higher division, only to be tempted to Devon, where something clicks.
Tolaj has been delightfully straightforward. He was scoring plenty for Aldershot in the National League, moved to Port Vale, scored regularly in League Two, and now he’s among the leading scorers in League One.
As we know, it’s about more than that with him. His work rate, ability to lay goals on for others, and various other characteristics are why we hold him in great esteem. But I can think of no better note of praise than to say that in moments like the opening goal against Cardiff, where he was laid in by Pepple, I felt in that nanosecond that I knew he would score. I cannot recall the last striker I was quite that confident in.
Ross’s arrival was much more low-key, which is odd considering he came from Galatasaray, via Sparta Prague. He has played in virtually every game since arriving, but a fair few have been from the bench. There were some thoughts initially that perhaps he was taking time to adjust to English football, and that may well be true, but gosh the adjustment has been good.
He and defensive partner Alex Mitchell are both only 24, but bely that age in their manner and performances. And they both now have a huge extra weapon in their arsenals – goals.
Ok, Mitch only has one to speak of, 30-yard screamer though it might (not) have been. (I’ll admit to never having heard the word ‘stanch’ in my life before he ambushed me with it in what was meant to be a serious interview). But he is clearly a threat. An effort of Alex’s led to Pepple’s goal at Blackpool, Mitchell went close at Orient, and he had the ball in the net against Cardiff, but was offside.
Ross now has four goals, and I can think of a couple of near-misses, plus the goal Caleb Watts was credited with at Stockport owed everything to the strike from Mathias that glanced off Watts on the way in.
First and foremost, Ross is a defender, and he is making a very good job of that too. He possesses calm, focus, and a drive to succeed, qualities the best defenders have.
Earlier in the season, Tom Cleverley had the decision to play a back three, or not a back three, that was the question. He felt it was nobler in the mind to go with a back four, and like the best Shakespearian impresarios, Cleverley is compelled to play The Dane. Alongside him, Mitchell, a fellow of infinite jest, and they may bear Argyle on their back a thousand times.
Defensive partnerships are still de rigueur, but strike duos are not so much. Saturday, though, made us feel something we haven’t in a long while, on that score. It is hard to believe it is only the sixth time Lorent Tolaj and Bim Pepple have started a game together.
In the previous five, they had scored two goals, and looked promising. On this day, they scored four between them, and looked unstoppable.
O, Bim Pepple. Bought as a project, and initially looking every inch like he might take a while to develop, but now, before you could say Aribusitamunoipirim, the man’s unplayable.
English born, Canadian made, you can discuss among yourselves what is Bim’s home and native land, but with glowing hearts we’ve seen his rise, and it has been a joy to behold.
His goals on Saturday were really tidy finishes; a well-controlled half-volley, and a towering far-post header, but I think I like his contribution to Argyle’s fourth – and arguably most pivotal – goal the most.
Back to goal, 40 yards out, Pepple took the ball in with a nice touch on his left foot. He headed towards the touchline on the left wing, manoeuvred his body in front of marker Gabriel Osho, nudged the ball on, then swung in a cross so nice and central, it could have adorned the Swiss flag.
Tolaj couldn’t get there because he was being shoved away at the time, but he picked himself up to take the penalty, and score it. That felt like the moment that if not extinguished Cardiff’s hopes, it certainly reduced them to embers.
A hat-trick for either forward, 11 years to the day that Reuben Reid bagged one at Exeter, would have been sweet. Pepple had a chance too, pushed away by the goalkeeper, but by the time both men were substituted, to a rapturous ovation, they had more than done their jobs.
Speaking of ovations, we can’t end this without a nod for the Man of the Match.
Bear in mind Tolaj scored twice, Pepple scored twice, Ross was immense at both ends, Brendan Wiredu a driving force in midfield, Malachi Boateng continuing his great form, Conor Hazard making several quality saves – the captain got the nod.
I have written at length about Joe Edwards before, notably after a winner against Sunderland last season and after his stint in co-charge with Nance, but let’s hear it again for the man everyone calls ‘Skip’.
What a performance. Bringing up his age is unfair. Whether 35, 25, 18 or 105, it was just a really good display from a great professional footballer and leader, driving his team on, winning key challenges and converting those into opportunities. Every bit of winning the ball back, getting forward and laying on a plate for Pepple to make it 3-1, was spot on.
And, finally, a word for the gaffer. Anyone who saw the ‘Behind the Greens’ video with him on Argyle TV, that wasn’t a gimmick. He really does start that early, and finish that late, pouring everything into the job, and ii is hard not to be around him and to feel very happy for the place that we are in.
He would probably say, and he would be right, that we should exercise a bit of caution. Yes, it’s three wins in a row, and the form over the last three months has continued to improve, but nothing is yet cracked. We are not the finished article.
But, when it is only a few months since being bottom of the league and continually feeling like games were a bit of a chore, it is only right we enjoy periods like this, and games like Saturday’s in particular.
As usual, football is not black and white. Nor is it green and blue, or red and white, or any other combination you wish to concoct.
But, it is true, that when you pull on the green…
