A well deserved win in difficult conditions saw 12300 of the 12800 crowd go home full of Boxing day good cheer and, more importantly saw Argyle stay top and 6 points clear of 4th. A near gale force wind and a pitch that played much better than it looked didn't deter Argyle in the first half, and they produced some very attractive attacking football which could and probably should have had them in at half time with a lead. Wylde was at his best down the left and Brunty made one or two outstanding passes to set up good positions. Yeovil played their part but never really threatened the defence - all in all it was back to the good performance of a few weeks ago- the only thing that was missing was a goal. The surprise inclusion of Reid and Simpson on the bench, in an otherwise unchanged side, must have had in affect as Brunt had his best game in green shirt. As well as some good passing, some of his hold up play in the second half was top class. No surprise then when he came up with the eventual winner round about the hour mark. Their keeper failed to hold a fierce swerving shot from Tanner and Brunt was on the spot to crash it home from close quarters. I must admit that my first reaction was that he was offside-obviously not. To be fair it should have been 3 or 4; Brunt shot over the bar from outside the area, Jervis should have scored instead of blasting over from 6 yards and Jervis also failed to find Reid when they were 2 on 1. The mercurial McHugh was crushed by one of their players and needed lengthy treatment, after which Yeovil seemed to grow in confidence a little. 1-0 is never easy and there were a few nervy moments towards the end but in the final analysis I thought we 'absolutely battered them 1-0' . Good to see DA on the pitch at the end acknowledging the GA. Sponsors MOTM went to McHugh and it was a close call but I would give it to Brunt-He is never going to score a hat full of goals but today he was really influential. Reuben and Simpson played about 20 mins which can only be good going forward. Half way there.
Fair report there Lyndhurst without mentioning the officials once. I am a little sick and tired having to talk about Referees and linos all the time but once more they deserve a mention. Absolutely rubbish the lot of them. In and around the second minute Argyle had the most blatant penalty ignored. Two hands in the back and an almighty shove from a Yeovil defender and the Ref just ignored it. There was a half decent shout for another one in half two but by then it was obvious there was no chance of getting one. Bookings were a bit bizaar given he failed to book several times for identical infringements. Somebody told me today that the last penalty we got was 40 games ago at Home Park. I think the Referee Association have had a bet with Ladbrooks that Argyle will go through the whole season with a penalty at all. I would have given MOM to Brunt today. I thought it was an obvious choice and not just because he scored either. McHugh was better than decent to be fair but Brunt was the best overall. One question I would ask is do the Defence practice cocking up playing the ball out during the week? Mellor must surelly practice because he manages to cock up doing it every game now. I wish he would not try to be Pele and put his foot through the ball sometimes. I wince and panic everytime he has the ball at the back these days. Good result in the end even if they made hard work of what should have been an easy game. Yeovil were terrible and it isn't hard to see why they are where they are. Still top and I'd say that no matter what happens this season now we are not relegation fodder. I'd say we are safe by Christmas this time around. All to play for in the next half of the season but things do look more rosey now.
I've kind of got to the stage with officials that I tend to ignore them in the sure knowledge that a) they will be crap and b) they wont give us anything at HP. You are right though, definite penalty early on- far worse than the one given against Mellor last week and the inconsistency of the yellow card awarding was horrendous. I guess the main thing is that it stayed 11 V 11 and that the poor officiating didn't influence the result. Thought that the best thing was that we played some decent attacking stuff even with a number of key players still missing or on the bench-can only be good news for the second half of the season.
With the yellow card thing I thought something was quite funny today. A bloke sitting near us said he won't book a Yeovil player because he hasn't booked on of our's yet. This was after a blatant bookable. Bugger me but 2 minutes later out came a card for one of our's presumably for preventling a free kick being taken quickly. Another 2 minutes later still and in went a Yeovil playe so the bloke was spot on prediction wise. A while later one of their's blatantly prevented a free kick being taken and the Ref did nothing. I do believe it is who you are rather than what your players do these days. I was looking at the Pompey match stats a little while ago and the foul totals because of the Reds and yellows dished out. Orient made 8 fouls according to the stats. They had 4 bookings and a straight red. Pompey had 15 fouls with one Red and one yellow. Now I know I haven't seen the fouls but you would have to ask questions as to why the difference in punishment. Orient had a higher than 50% card ratio to fouls. It just seems a joke. The only disappointment today was the end product to the approach stuff. Thought we were poor in front of goal with very weak finishing mostly. It is good that players are on the way back and you are right, it can only be good news.
Brunt scored from a Tanner belter that swerve and the goalkeeper could only parry it to Brunt. It mystifies me how we can be doing so well and have only once scored more than two goals in a match......(four against Carlisle).....very strange.
