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I wrote two or three match reports for this site last season, and one in particular came to mind as I began to prepare this piece. On both occasions I have spent a long time trying to think of something I could report or discuss, without much success.
The only thing I could really think about this today was our sending off towards the end of the game. We had this occurrence last time too, it was the Hull game at the Turf when David Unsworth saw red. But at least I actually had a goal to report on from that match, albeit one for the opposition, in a 1-0 defeat.
It was clear that Plymouth were not at Turf Moor for the win. They wanted a point, and were happy enough to put as many men behind the ball as possible to do this. Their looking for a point was confirmed by their manager post game who declared "The essence of life is to draw your away games and win your home games."
The approach that they took, however, was certainly effective as we never looked like scoring despite having all of the play. We looked comfortable at the back, and were able to take the ball forward through the midfield but the moment we approached the penalty area we found a wall of orange. And we had no answer.
I can truly only recall two instances where we came close to finding the net. Both were free-kicks, the first from Chris Eagles which was saved well by the Argyle keeper, and the second a drive from Joey which crept just over the crossbar in added time.
It was Chris Eagles who received the red in this game, and it looked as though he could have been off earlier. After picking up a booking he seemingly said something untoward about Mr Oliver who despite hearing this let him off this time.
Next time he would not be so lucky. He conceded a throw-in down by the Bob Lord stand, but soon after it was taken the game was stopped and the assistant referee called his senior over. Instantly I said "He's off". I was right, although the straight red was more than I had anticipated. Having not seen any violent play from Eagles, I assumed he must have repeated his earlier act of failing to keep his thoughts to himself, although we still don't know the definitive reason for the dismissal.
The game really was dire, and the final whistle could not have come quick enough. Absolutely nothing happened at all. And now whereas we appear to have solved the problem of conceding too much for the moment, we have discovered that we don't know how to score. I felt sorry for Paterson because he had no support at all, and saw so little of the ball. We have a quality striker here, yet are not giving him the opportunity to show what he can do.
Chris Eagles was again very poor, he does not look up for the fight at all. If things are not going his way he gets frustrated, his performance is massively affected and, we now know, he mouths off at referees. He needs to look around himself and realise he is playing for a small town club that has consistently finished in the bottom half of the Championship.
We can take positives from a sound defensive performance and yet another clean sheet, although Argyle were hardly a threat. Russell Anderson had a solid debut and I was impressed by Kalvenes. It was disappointing to see him go off injured and you have to hope that there is no real problem there. With Jordan not in the squad Graham Alexander was forced to fill in at left back, but we have two week to get both Jordan and Kalvenes back to fitness.
In a way you could see Eagles' suspension as a plus point, too. He has not impressed me, and many others it seems, so far and I would personally much prefer to see a more solid player take his place in the side. Hopefully we can now give Alan Mahon the chance to impress before he gets injured again. Maybe Eagles will have chance to reflect on his own personal form in his time out too, and come back hungry to put that behind him as it is clear he has ability and in time should become a good player for us.