Match Day Thread versus Luton Town

Sonny Bradley Sensible. The other shorter black guy us Songo'o. Neither impressed but like you I was concerned by the lack of dominance in the air over a Luton side who weren't exceptionally tall. There was also a lot of general indecisiveness and to quote Saint Alan Hansen, indecision amongst defenders is final. Maybe that will improve after a few games together.

 

PS Lyndhurst - is the RWY thing annual? We like a bit of open air theatre

 

Not sure if it is annual or not , it was put on by the Barbican Theatre and runs for the next two weeks. It was a sell out last night but there are tickets available for most performances next week. We normally find at least one outdoor performance in the local area each year-always a good night of the weather is decent.

 

The only time Bradley won anything in the air was when he was the only challenger so all he had to do was beat himself which the Luton forward line managed all afternoon. He must have been a good 4 inches taller than the Luton No.9 yet got out jumped all afternoon.

I don't think preseason games whether easy or hard have anything to do with league form. I do believe they are about fitness match wise and to try out certain moves and tactics. We are at the wrong end of the country to be able to stay local and match ourselves up with stern opposition all the time. We can't play Exeter or Yeovil because they are also league 2 sides and that leaves Torquay and Truro as the top teams left. I also don't think that anyone got carried away with some of the scorelines either. It was the start of the season and everyone's expectations were naturally high without anyone thinking of preseason. We were poor at the back which is why we lost. We could not score and sometimes instead of having a go tried to pass it into the net. It was never going to happen. Despite a poor Ref he wasn't at fault for our loss, he was just fecking annoying.

You cannot possibly tell what season you are going to have after one game. It will take a few and if the outcomes are the same after that then we will struggle. There is a reasonable class of player at Argyle for this season so if we struggle it will be down to the heart they have rather than their ability. If they do struggle then watch the crowds drop rapidly this time. If I was a passing potential supporter and had seen that yesterday, and quite a few were, then I would have to consider if it was worth bothering to go again.

 

Being away from the action in NW Kent, I spend my time gleaning every bit of match info I can find.

Two things that I noticed from other Argyle websites.

1.....Luke McCormick.....questions being asked about him being No1 goalkeeper still.....comments that he could of done better maybe for two of Lutons goals.....also quite a few commented about him wandering up field to far......teams will take note of this and he will get lobbed one day.

I did bring this wandering to far outside his area up after the Wembley disaster......I felt uncomfortable every time he did it.....why does he do it ? what advantage does it give.....I would suggest that it gives the opposition an advantage, an opportunity to try a shot from distance with a empty goal to aim at.

One comment suggested that now he is captain he needs to be nearer the action so he can direct play......if that's the case then he shouldn't be captain.....it's not the best position to lead the team from.

2.....Another thing that was picked up was a comment from a Luton fan........who said that Argyle where a different team in the second half.....he felt that Luton's fitness levels started to show as the game continued....and he felt that we where not fit enough.

How fit do you get playing against Pub teams....winning by cricket scores doesn't push your fitness levels.....no pre-season match will check out your fitness compared with the nitty gritty of league competition, where teams are chasing three points......losing 3-0 at home is a disaster and needs sorting out......the weeks ahead will show us if Luton are promotion candidates or that we where ill prepared for the seasons first real test of our chances of doing well this season.

 

Just looked at the game video of Saturdays match......plenty of work to be done before this lot look like a promotion team.

Noticeable how Songo'o was done for speed for two of their goals.

Poor marking for their first goal....there forward fluffed his shot but the ball broke to another Luton player who was unmarked.....McCormick not in charge at all.

There third goal went through McCormick to easily.....he does jump up and down a lot blaming others these days when a goal is scored.

The second half looked just to easy for Luton.....surely they wont get so much freedom against other teams.

I would say that Luton did what they had to do...against a poorish second half display by Argyle.

 

The poor second half may have something to do with fitness but I rather think that the first goal won it. Adams changed the formation to try to get a goal back and took off Ijaha who'd been a powerful midfield force in order to do it. After that, Luton had much better luck getting through onto a less well protected back 4 and the 2 centre backs, as everyone seems to agree, weren't good.

Bearing in mind we'd had a strong territorial advantage in the first half albeit without scoring, maybe going gung ho with a 4:3:3 wasn't the right solution. Luton got their second 5 minutes after the change and that was pretty much that. If there had to be a change, maybe a 3:2:3:2 (Bradley, Song'o, Sawyer, Threlkeld, Ijaha, Slew, Carey, Jervis, Goodwillie, Spencer) might have been a better option. Easy to wise after the event of course... he did play 3:5:2 in some of the warm up games though.

I don't think a goalkeeper captain is a good choice for the simple reason any goalkeeper is isolated from the front half of the team for long periods of time and can't "interact" with the referee (for whatever that's worth since most of them are actually on another planet). McCormick made a super save in the first half let's not forget and to me the lack of protection he got was the real problem. However, competition for places is good and I thought Dorel did OK when he got some gametime at the tail end of last season.

This is a very much changed side and the smaller pitch must be a signal that the style is going to be very much different too. I doubt it will be as attractive to watch as some of what we got last year but ultimately it will be the results that count. We showed worrying deficiencies at the back on Saturday which were evident right from the start but we did dominate the first half against a well fancied side. Other than Ryan Brunt who has a long term injury, we have two players unavailable and both of those are defenders. It's far too early to predict disaster.

 

Luke doesn't just wander up field. He goes a long way out when the play is well up the other end and if one of theirs can lob him from 60 yards then it would be some goal. I don't believe it is anything to do with being Captain either. Not sure about him being that on the day like a number of people. He was club captain before but not on the pitch. I think that's a better option. He was a bit at fault for the third but the other two were not down to him. The pasoti people do nothing but jump on bandwagons dependant on the scoreline. They change with the weather mostly.

I also don't think Argyle particularly lack fitness either. Luton certainly rode their luck a lot with second ball and so on. The bounce of the ball went their way 8 times out of 10. Now some of that might be sharpness but it didn't look that way. I just love the "it needs sorting out". Do you seriously think Adams is content with what he saw? Do you seriously think he won't make changes if he needs to? Frankly it's stating the obvious. Given the fact that you don't want to start a long season by getting in a coach and travelling halfway round the Country to play friendlies, who else are they supposed to play then? You get fit by running around in a competitive match and it doesn't matter who you are playing to do that.

There is no need to panic just yet.

 

I see Luton beat Aston Villa 3-1 at home in this Cup thing tonight.....one was a tap in and another was an own goal.

 

Well Luton will have used cup al their luck soon.. they may get relegated?