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This week Plymouth sneaked above us with a win at Southampton and there we sit in the two places directly below the play offs with. They are two points ahead of us but we have a game in hand.
January saw big changes in the squad. When they arrived at Burnley they had already parted company with Dan Gosling and Sylvan Ebanks-Blake to Everton and Wolves respectively whilst at the end of the month David Norris went to Ipswich in a £2 million deal.
Yoann Folly had signed the day before, and made his Plymouth debut at Turf Moor, and since Sturrock has added no fewer than six more to his squad. Chris Clark came from Aberdeen, Steven MacLean (like Folly he had played for Sturrock at Sheffield Wednesday) signed from Cardiff and Jamie Mackie made the short move from Exeter.
The final permanent signing was Jim Mackie from Motherwell and then this week Gary Teale and Russ Anderson came in on loan from Derby and RK Sunderland to complete the new look squad.
It is just six weeks ago we beat them with a Robbie Blake goal in what proved to be Andy Gray's last game for the Clarets and given their performance that day you wouldn't have expected Plymouth to be as high as they are now.
They only picked up two points from their next three games too, but they are very much bang in form now with that win at Southampton taking it to three successive wins without a single goal conceded.
It is almost fourteen years since we last won at Plymouth, that being the play off semi-final win, whilst two John Pender goals gave us a win in the previous season in the league. We haven't scored a goal there since Gerry Creaney netted a second half equaliser in October 1997.
It's time to start scoring and winning there again, and we will hopefully go into today's game in the sort of form we showed in the second half at QPR last week.
Although Paul Sturrock does have some injury worries he is very likely to name an unchanged side from the one that won at Southampton in midweek.
Mathias Doumbe is ruled out whilst Marcel Seip has returned from injury after missing six games but is not likely to be risked. Chris Clark, Lee Hodges and Yoann Folly are all on their way back but again not expected to be included.
Plymouth's likely line up is: Luke McCormick, Paul Connolly, Krisztian Timar, Russ Anderson, Gary Sawyer, Peter Halmosi, Lilian Nalis, Nadjim Abdou, Jim Paterson, Jermaine Easter, Steven MacLean. Subs from: Romain Larrieu, Paul Wotton, Jamie Mackie, Rory Fallon, Gary Teale, Luke Summerfield, Jake Moult, Dan Smith.
Owen Coyle will have to make at least one change from the side that won at QPR. It's been an ongoing saga for over a week now since one club employee said Andrew Cole was injured whilst another said it was nothing but unfounded rumour.
The truth is that Cole is out tomorrow and that could run into Tuesday's game against Coventry. The likely replacement is Ade Akinbiyi who came on at half time to some effect at Loftus Road. Ade could play up front on his own and that could mean Robbie Blake going back onto the left at the expense of Kyle Lafferty if indeed Blake recovers from his hamstring problem.
At the back we have both David Unsworth and Clarke Carlisle back but I suspect we might continue with Stanislav Varga and Steven Caldwell but I do think Chris McCann could be back in the starting eleven in midfield.
We could name the following side: Brian Jensen, Graham Alexander, Stanislav Varga, Steven Caldwell, Jon Harley, Wade Elliott, James O'Connor, Joey Gudjonsson, Chris McCann, Robbie Blake, Ade Akinbiyi. Subs from: Gabor Kiraly, David Unsworth, Clarke Carlisle, John Spicer, Mark Randall, Kyle Lafferty.
It was certainly no classic and when the final whistle blew it was no surprise that this one had ended 0-0. It was certainly nothing like our previous away game at Norwich which we had won 4-1.
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Our problems were mainly those caused by Plymouth's love for going down a little bit too easily. The two main culprits were Sylvan Ebanks-Blake and David Norris and both of them were each lectured by the referee on two separate occasions. Had the man in the middle, Pat Miller, been somewhat tougher they could both had received two yellow cards. At least he spotted the dives.
After an even first 30 minutes or so Plymouth really put us under some pressure and we were thankful to get to half time level. It owed a lot to some good defending and some good fortune but it was not helped with losing Gifton Noel-Williams to injury just before the half hour.
In truth they never caused us any real problems in the second half. They had plenty of the ball but they weren't able to create any chances and after what overall had been a very dour game, for the third successive season, it was the Clarets who nearly sneaked in a winner in the closing minutes.
We weren't able to take a couple of late chances and it eventually ended goalless. Michael Duff had an excellent game at the back whereas in midfield James O'Connor was our best player. It retained our unbeaten start to the season away from home with three wins and three draws.
The teams were;
Plymouth: Luke McCormick, Paul Connolly, Marcel Seip, Hasney Aljofree, Tony Capaldi, David Norris, Paul Wotton, Lilian Nalis, Akos Buzsaky, Barry Hayles, Sylvan Ebanks-Blake (Cherno Samba 86). Subs not used: Romain Larrieu, Mathias Doumbe, Luke Summerfield, Bojan Djordjic.
Burnley: Brian Jensen, Frank Sinclair, Michael Duff, Stephen Foster, Jon Harley, Wade Elliott (Alan Mahon 81), James O'Connor, Micah Hyde, Steve Jones, Andy Gray, Gifton Noel-Williams (Kyle Lafferty 27). Subs not used: Graham Branch, Chris McCann, John Spicer.
Previous 20 Seasons | |||||
Season | Div | Ven | Result | Att | Scorers |
1992/93 | 2 | h | 0-0 | 8,676 | . |
| . | . | a | 2-1 | 5,905 | Pender(2) |
1993/94 | 2 | h | 4-2 | 10,488 | Eyres Monington Peel(2) |
| . | . | a | 2-3 | 10,595 | Heath Philliskirk |
. | PO | h | 0-0 | 18,794 | . |
| . | . | a | 3-1 | 17,515 | Francis(2) Joyce |
1996/97 | 2 | h | 2-1 | 9,602 | Nogan Eyres(pen) |
| . | . | a | 0-0 | 6,289 | . |
1997/98 | 1 | a | 2-2 | 3,006 | Eyres(pen) Creaney |
| . | . | h | 2-1 | 18,811 | Cooke(2) |
2004/05 | C | a | 0-1 | 13,308 | . |
| . | . | h | 2-0 | 12,893 | Valois(pen) O'Connor |
2005/06 | C | a | 0-1 | 11,829 | . |
| . | . | h | 1-0 | 11,292 | Ricketts |
2006/07 | C | a | 0-0 | 12,817 | . |
| . | . | h | 4-0 | 9,793 | Duff McVeigh Jones Elliott |
2007/08 | C | h | 1-0 | 14,162 | Blake |