Brief Synopsis

Good summary Postcode.

We got away with a sloppy last 20-25 minutes today. We seem to just go a bit ‘meh’ a bit too easily and too often for my liking.

It was Moore who played their striker onside. He was picking himself up off the floor in the penalty area at the time.

I liked the energy and bite that Fornah and Camara brought to the midfield in the first half. Nice dynamic and snappy they set the tempo a bit higher than normal.

The only thing that worries me slightly with young Cooper is he tends to be a bit hesitant to come and claim the ball at times. They had a golden chance to score but the fella headed wide from about six yards out. Hopefully he is working on that side of the game.

Watts is starting to look the part after a shaky start long may that continue.

All in all a good win. Expect Doncaster to be around the play offs.

Few observations.

Luke takes chances well, but, felt his first touch let him down a few times tonight. When Nouble isn't playing, our strikers need to find a way to hold the ball up so we can build attacks.

Byron Moore - great going forward but felt he was slow to spot danger second half when Donny pressed us after our second goal.

Like others thought Watts continued his recent improvement, Mayor glided past defenders gloriously, should have resulted in more goals.

The team had holes opening up second half, leaving Donny the chance to threaten us. Is it naivety with our young defenders Opoku and Watts or is it Fornah and Camara not spotting danger as the opposition piled forward?

Few days on training ground available now to address some of this.

Well done Argyle

Positives going forward.

We are winning at home, scoring a couple goals consistently, against different range of opponents(Doncaster, Blackpool, Northampton etc.).

Despite our limited amount of clean sheets across all games(2 so far), we finish games with a win...at home.

Our negatives are away from home, which is perhaps irrelevant, in the short term, with our next away league game against Fleetwood, in a months time..as well as tonight.

All the same, our inability to outscore Wigan, or to fail to score against hull and Lincoln, has lead me to believe, that there a positives going forward for us away from home...if we can get more creativity to support mayor.

Perhaps Telford can link things with him in a number 10 role, with..yes I said it.. a change of system... or something similar, as well as offering an attacking threat.

Otherwise, I worry away from home(2 draws, 2 losses).

So it's good that this is the only negative I can see, because, I genuinely believe we have better players, than our results away from home have suggested so far, and I can't see any negatives at home(4 wins, 1 draw).

We get results at home, and that's what counts.

Top stuff Argyle.

Keep it up.

Our last 12 league game at home:

Won: 9
Dawn: 3
Lost: 0

30 points from a possible 36.

Very impressive.

That is the third game that Aimson, Opoku and Watts formed our back three.
Watts is now a very consistent player who is winning the ball in the air and his distribution is very good. He has already proven that he can score goals.
Opoku was thrown in at the last minute at Lincoln and played on the left and was not convincing but it was unfair to judge him too harshly. His performance against Wigan was the first occasion that he played in the centre and looked OK. Tonight, I thought he was very good. He did well in a one on one to put the forward off without conceding a free kick which would probably have resulted in a red card.
Aimson is now looking match fit, looks a good defender although he occasionally misplaces a straightforward pass. However, I do remember one excellent crossfield pass to Byron Moore. I think he is getting there.
Doncaster are probably a better side than they showed tonight and I think that the back 3 can take a lot of credit for that.

davie nine":1tja7hn6 said:

That is the third game that Aimson, Opoku and Watts formed our back three.
Watts is now a very consistent player who is winning the ball in the air and his distribution is very good. He has already proven that he can score goals.
Opoku was thrown in at the last minute at Lincoln and played on the left and was not convincing but it was unfair to judge him too harshly. His performance against Wigan was the first occasion that he played in the centre and looked OK. Tonight, I thought he was very good. He did well in a one on one to put the forward off without conceding a free kick which would probably have resulted in a red card.
Aimson is now looking match fit, looks a good defender although he occasionally misplaces a straightforward pass. However, I do remember one excellent crossfield pass to Byron Moore. I think he is getting there.
Doncaster are probably a better side than they showed tonight and I think that the back 3 can take a lot of credit for that.

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Interesting take on the Opoku challenge. I think he was extremely fortunate the forward didn’t go down otherwise I think the ref would have had little option but to send him off and secondly he was lucky he didn’t score as he had been outmuscled and outpaced, had it been an Argyle striker we would have
been massively disappointed, I think it was a terrible finish.

Having said all that quite wtf he was doing isolated one on one with the striker from a long punt forward on a break is a mystery.

Larry David":845644nx said:

davie nine":845644nx said:

That is the third game that Aimson, Opoku and Watts formed our back three.
Watts is now a very consistent player who is winning the ball in the air and his distribution is very good. He has already proven that he can score goals.
Opoku was thrown in at the last minute at Lincoln and played on the left and was not convincing but it was unfair to judge him too harshly. His performance against Wigan was the first occasion that he played in the centre and looked OK. Tonight, I thought he was very good. He did well in a one on one to put the forward off without conceding a free kick which would probably have resulted in a red card.
Aimson is now looking match fit, looks a good defender although he occasionally misplaces a straightforward pass. However, I do remember one excellent crossfield pass to Byron Moore. I think he is getting there.
Doncaster are probably a better side than they showed tonight and I think that the back 3 can take a lot of credit for that.

Click to expand...

Interesting take on the Opoku challenge. I think he was extremely fortunate the forward didn’t go down otherwise I think the ref would have had little option but to send him off and secondly he was lucky he didn’t score as he had been outmuscled and outpaced, had it been an Argyle striker we would have
been massively disappointed, I think it was a terrible finish.

Having said all that quite wtf he was doing isolated one on one with the striker from a long punt forward on a break is a mystery.

Click to expand...

If you’re both talking about the break from our own corner, it was Byron Moore who was last man, not Opoku. They don’t even look alike.

The more i see of Jephcott the more i see him in the same vain as Joe Mason.

Apart from the ability to find space and being calm their doesn't appear the physical attributes to play the game at this level, not quick, not big, not overly strong - but he has a knack/footballing brain to make the very best of what he does have. That you feel can only improve with more games at this level.

Mayor was excellent, the ability to beat players and wrong foot defenders is a real special talent that not many have, as others have said without him, you do wonder where the creative juices will come from.

Nine games in and in truth, i think we have to pleased with our start, the two defeats away at the current top two weren't catastrophic, we were at least Lincoln's equal in the first half of that game and i thought comfortably the better in the 2nd half at Hull. A sloppy 25 mins at Wimbledon and Wigan were probably the biggest disappointments so far.

We now need an away win!!

Voice_of_Reason":3fkapchh said:

The more i see of Jephcott the more i see him in the same vain as Joe Mason.

Apart from the ability to find space and being calm their doesn't appear the physical attributes to play the game at this level, not quick, not big, not overly strong - but he has a knack/footballing brain to make the very best of what he does have. That you feel can only improve with more games at this level.

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I don't disagree, however, you can improve your physical attributes. Jon Lucas can see to that. But for a player of his age to have the knack of finding space around the penalty box is something that's hard to teach. It's invaluable. I've seen plenty of strikers over the years who are hard working and physical but couldn't score goals. I'd much rather have it the other way round. Personally, I'm not sure he's fully fit at the moment following his slight injury.

Good performance last night I thought. The first half was almost as dominant as against Wigan, difference here being that Wigan are just a bad football team, Doncaster are a good football team who we made to look poor through excellent pressing. We didn't allow them time on the ball at all and other than one corner where Aimson lost his man, they barely had a sniff for the first half.

Second half, inevitably, they got back into the game. But I thought we displayed more control that in the past two games and it didn't feel like the game was running away from us, other than a 5 minute spell. There goal was clever play by the midfielder, who realised the offside trap wasn't going to work.

I thought we noticeably hoofed the ball into the channel less last night. The balls that did go long went into chest or feet rather than in behind and it made a big difference. I said after Lincoln, we needed to play through the thirds more and stop bypassing midfield. Last night we did that and it's no surprise that Mayor was outstanding (albeit slightly wasteful at times). In terms of dribbling and close control, in my time supporting Argyle I think only Ruben Lameiras comes close to his level. He is incredibly comfortable dribbling out of tight spaces, losing his man and getting up the pitch fast. It's invaluable, certainly was last night and Doncaster couldn't get near to him for 90 minutes.

I'd also like to see us persist with this back three now. They've got gradually better over the three games and familiarity will only benefit them and Cooper. Whilst Canavan is my favoured CB, I think the weak link at the moment is Aimson and only Wootton can really slot in at RCB. Watts and Opoku are left sided.

Ratings:

Cooper - 7 - One shaky moment where he punched Aimson. A communication error. Made up for it with an excellent punch to clear the corner that followed.
Moore - 7 - His best game of the season. Much more like the player we saw last year.
Aimson - 7 - I remain unconvinced, but he was better last night.
Opoku - 7 - His best game so far. As predicted, getting better with more minutes. Definitely looks more comfortable at CB, rather than LWB.
Watts - 8 - We've got a player on our hands here. Really beginning to flourish. Him driving forward at LCB adds a dimension to the attack.
Fornah - 7 - Solid performance. Although he seems to have spells where he becomes a bit immobile.
Camara - 8 - Bloody love this guy. Saw on twitter last night he covered 12.5km in the game. Outstanding.
Mayor - 8.5 - Arguably his best performance in a green shirt. Unplayable for most of the evening.
Hardie - 6 - Not his best game, but worked hard and evidence is there that he's getting sharper.
Jephcott - 7 - Not his best game either, but always dangerous around the box and got his goal.

Nouble - 7 - Held the ball up really well when he came on. Think I prefer him off the bench for now.
Abraham - N/A - Wasn't on long enough. A willing runner, though.

This was a good display against a playoff quality side. However we know we can match anyone at home. We need to figure out how to start getting points on the road. After a few long trips of late, the Accrington postponement is welcome to be honest.

For physical attributes just look at Barnes if Burnley. Left Argyle a boy now a beast and handful of a man.

Great summary by Nobby, really enjoyed reading it and think your take on last night is very good.