Plymouth bring Turf Moor curtain down

Plymouth were even warning their fans about potential pitfalls in Burnley this week and even used the sad death of Forest fan Nathan Shaw – it just about sums up the Devon club.

After a bright start to the season they had a dreadful run either side of the New Year and were in free fall, they looked prime candidates for promotion as they dropped further and further down the table and by mid February they were just one place above the relegation positions.

That was as low as it got though and they recovered to win five of the last eleven games and although not mathematically safe it would take a strange sequence of results to send them down.

There have been some changes at Home Park since we played there in December with manager Bobby Williamson bringing in new players and amazingly not shopping for them in Scotland, he seems to have left that to Craig Levein at Leicester.

He’s brought three players in on permanent deals, the first two of them arriving before Christmas. He signed Bjarni Gudjonsson from Coventry and then paid £100,000 for Blackpool striker Scott Taylor. In February he signed Nick Chadwick from Everton and he cost £250,000.

There have been loan signings too and Hungarian Akos Buzsaky signed from Porto in January whilst Dexter Blackstock and Jason Dodd both moved along the south coast from Southampton. Blackstock though has been called back this week by the Saints.

Four of the side that beat us in Devon have now left the club. Stevie Crawford headed back north to sign for Dundee United whilst Marino Keith and Steve Adams signed for League One clubs Colchester and Sheffield Wednesday respectively.

David Friio has also gone, opting to sign for Nottingham Forest ahead of the Clarets or staying at Plymouth. I bet he’ll reflect on that next season when he’s playing League One football.

The other Plymouth player we were linked with was Paul Wotton but there was never much likelihood of him leaving Home Park and he signed a new deal with them to dismiss any speculation of him leaving.

They will tomorrow be looking to get back to winning ways after picking up just one point in their last two games.

Click HERE to see all Plymouth’s results this season.

Bobby Williamson will be without two players who were involved in their 1-1home draw with Coventry last week. Hasney Aljofree is ruled out with a nose injury that requires surgery whilst he’ll need to find a replacement for Dexter Blackstock with his return to Southampton.

Fit again Matthias Doumbe and Scott Taylor are expected to come in for the two missing players in an otherwise unchanged team which is expected to be:

Luke McCormick, David Worrell, Graham Coughlan, Matthias Doumbe, Peter Gilbert, David Norris, Paul Wotton, Akos Buzsaky, Nick Chadwick, Micky Evans, Scott Taylor. Subs from: Romain Larrieu, Tony Capaldi, Keith Lasley, Luke Summerfield, Bjarni Gudjonsson, Steve Milne, Chris Zebroski.

Click HERE to see Plymouth’s full squad.

Tony Grant has been a doubt all week after coming off at Forest but he’s expected to be fit, as is captain Frank Sinclair who hasn’t played since being forced off against West Ham with a calf injury.

Frank is likely to come back into the side and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Dean Bowditch back in the starting line up with both Michael Duff and Lee Roche missing out.

Joel Pilkington is out of the running for a place on the bench, he’s off to Iceland for a trial, whilst Matt O’Neill has returned from his loan spell at Accrington with an injury that will rule him out.

This week it’s Brian Jensen’s turn in goal and it will be his last appearance of the season. What a comeback for him it has been. Out in the cold at the beginning of the season he took his chance well when Danny Coyne was injured at QPR and his performances have won him a new three year deal.

Some of our players will be playing for us for the last time on the Turf tomorrow – let’s give the whole team though the fantastic support their performance over the season have deserved.

Burnley’s expected line up is: Brian Jensen, Frank Sinclair, Gary Cahill, John McGreal, Mo Camara, Dean Bowditch, Micah Hyde, Tony Grant, James O’Connor, Graham Branch, Ade Akinbiyi. Subs: Danny Coyne, Lee Roche, Michael Duff, John Oster, Jean-Louis Valois.

It’s just seven years since we last met at Turf Moor and it was then, as it is now, the last home game of the season. But it was more important than that, and on the last day of the 1997/98 season either or both of us could be relegated and at least one of us had to be. We needed to win and hope, Plymouth just needed to win.

It was a tense afternoon in front of almost 19,000 but it was the Clarets who came out on top with a 2-1 win and two goals from Andy Cooke. All the goals were scored in the first half and there were a few scares during the second forty-five minutes, I can still see Mark Winstanley almost gifting them a late equaliser.

For some petty reason the Plymouth club have held a grudge since and think they are looking for revenge – but simply tomorrow’s game will not be quite so important. That win seven years ago was probably our most important game since the Orient game.

The teams were,

Burnley: Chris Woods, Chris Brass, Gerry Harrison, Neil Moore, Mark Winstanley, Glen Little, Mark Ford, Damian Matthew, Paul Weller, Andy Cooke, Andy Payton. Subs not used: Lee Howey, Jamie Hoyland, Chris Waddle.

Plymouth: Jon Sheffield, Paul Wotton, Paul Williams (Ronnie Mauge 67), Mark Saunders, Mike Heathcote, Stephen Woods, Martin Barlow (Earl Jean 70), Phil Starbuck (Simon Collins 57), Barry Conlon, Carlo Corazzin, Darren Currie.