Cook: Plymouth Are a Very Strong Team and We’ll Have Our Hands Full Friday, 29th Oct 2021 12:35 Boss Paul Cook says he’s under no illusions about how difficult a game the Blues face against League One leaders Plymouth at Home Park on Saturday afternoon. The Pilgrims are currently ahead of Wycombe Wanderers on goal difference having taken 30 points from their 15 fixtures so far, while the Blues are in 10th having yielded 20 from their 14 league matches. Plymouth have lost only once in the league this season, 1-0 at Rotherham on the opening day. Saturday’s visit to Home Park is the first of five Town matches against teams in the top six, with the Blues travelling to face the Chairboys in a rearranged game on Tuesday and matches at home to Oxford, who are sixth, at Sunderland, fourth, and against Rotherham, fifth, at Portman Road following. Asked about that run of fixtures, Cook says he takes the traditional one-match-at-a-time approach. “I never look ahead lads,” he insisted. “I’ve said to you before and still believe it that the opposition is irrelevant, it’s about us and our performance. As our fans have said, what Ipswich Town will turn up. “We’re 14 games in now, I think Plymouth deserve more than the utmost respect for what they’re doing. I think Ryan [Lowe] is doing an absolutely outstanding job, a fantastic job. “I think the team plays like it is, very, very well coached, very disciplined, they know their jobs inside out and basically have flattened everyone who has come in front of them down here.  “For us tomorrow, we’re under no illusions about how difficult the game is, Bolton 3-0, Sheffield Wednesday 3-0, they haven’t lost since the start of the season. There’s no luck about what Plymouth Argyle are doing. Plymouth Argyle are a very, very strong team and we’ve got our hands full tomorrow.” Pressed on whether that run will give him an idea of where his team is, Cook added: “If you’d have asked me where we were at after seven games, after what our fans had deemed an easy start, where would you have said we were at? “I just keep going. I think every time we have a result, it’s always about the next and the next. I think for me, the staff and the players, the next game is the big one. “All our attention is on Plymouth Argyle, you get three points if you win, one point if you draw and nothing if we come back with nothing, and then we’ll turn our attention to Wycombe. “I think the hardest thing for everyone to do is to look at the bigger picture. The bigger picture for all teams says 46 league games and all the accolades will be handed out. We’ll just concentrate on the long journey.” Regarding the long trip to the South-West, which the Blues made on Thursday, Cook says that can’t be an excuse for a bad performance or bad result. “No, Plymouth have to travel away every week and they are top of the league, so maybe there's something good about travelling,” he said. “The pain is for our supporters travelling and I’ll tell them to be careful because the weather over there is not great at the minute, so be careful when you're travelling and let's look forward to a great game tomorrow.”
Cook says he spends much of his time on long coach trips continuing preparations for the upcoming match. “We try to do some work. I think with most teams, the studying of the opposition is important and I don't think there are any secrets,” the Blues manager said. “By the time we both go on the pitch tomorrow, we'll both know what each other are going to do and we'll both know what each other are going to try and do, and then it goes over to the players. “Our job as staff and Will [Stevenson], our analyst, is to make sure that we've covered every blade of grass, whether that's throw-ins, whether that's corners, whether that's free-kicks so our players get every bit of information available so that they can win the game. That’s the detail that goes into football now. “So the journey sometimes helps the preparation time for the staff. I think the players probably have it a little bit more difficult in relation to box sets and headphones and bits of stuff that they do.” Cook says he knows Pilgrims boss Lowe, who is in his third season in charge at Home Park having been appointed in June 2019, but perhaps not as well as other bosses from their home city. “Probably not as far back as some of the Liverpool lads,” he reflected. “I’d never really crossed paths with Ryan. I've known Ryan obviously a long time due to his playing career and obviously his managerial career. “I've probably got to know Ryan better over the last five years than probably the years before that where obviously I knew Ryan but without really knowing him. “He's a studier of the game, he's another big Liverpool fan - there seems to be a lot of us about at the minute, doesn't there? - and his career is going on a really good pathway. “He's doing great, he's had success Bury and success at Plymouth now and the team he's put together now is very good, it's very balanced. “It’s like I like to watch a team, you see what they are trying to do and you can clearly see what they are trying to do. “He gives the players great belief and confidence to go and deliver that and he's on a really good pathway, so it's great to see him doing well.” There will be one familiar face in the Plymouth line-up, centre-half James Wilson, who was released in the summer after two seasons with the Blues, having won the Player of the Year award last term. “James is a really good lad, an outstanding professional and does everything properly,” Cook said.
“I think he's slotted into Plymouth’s style of play really, really well. I think it's a move that he's probably really enjoying, and good luck to James.” Cook has said to expect changes due to a number of injuries, so second-guessing Saturday’s XI is therefore all but impossible. However, it’s likely the Blues boss will want to stick with the team which won 4-0 at Portsmouth and 2-1 at home to Fleetwood as near as he can. Assuming they’re fit, Christian Walton will be in goal with Janoi Donacien at right-back and Matt Penney at left-back, although Hayden Coulson, from comments Cook made earlier this month, ought to be closing in on a return from the thigh problem he suffered at Lincoln. Toto Nsiala and George Edmundson are again likely to be Cook’s preferred pairing at the heart of the defence, while Cameron Burgess and Luke Woolfenden are the alternatives. In midfield, the Blues boss will want to stick with Lee Evans next to skipper Sam Morsy with Idris El Mizouni and Rekeem Harper his other options. Kyle Edwards has started the last two games on the left with Scott Fraser having been out with a knock, while Sone Aluko was forced off during the Fleetwood match with what looked likely to be a broken nose. Wes Burns took over. Conor Chaplin netted his fifth goal in seven games against the Cod Army and along with 10-goal top scorer Macauley Bonne looks to be one of the first names on the teamsheet at present. Bersant Celina will be hoping he can return to the team having scored last week’s dramatic winner from the bench. Plymouth manager Lowe says he and his players treat every side they face the same, whether they’re one of the division’s larger clubs or otherwise. “People will call their own clubs 'big hitters' and not so 'big hitters' but we don't look at it like that we respect every club that comes to Home Park and we respect every club we go on the road to travel to,” he told Plymouth Live. “You don't have the right to beat any club, whether that's Ipswich, Sheffield Wednesday or Morecambe. They have been in the echelons of the Premier League but they're in our league now.
“The players don't look at it as 'we're playing Ipswich Town’. If Barcelona, Real Madrid, Man City or Liverpool are coming to town then it's a bit different, but with all due respect, these teams are in our league for a reason so we have to respect them but not fear them. “It's important we don't fear them as we want to go toe to toe with these clubs. People will mention how big their budgets are but it doesn't really matter it's a game of 11-v-11 and the best team does the best things most of the time.” Regarding Town, he added: “They've got a fantastic squad and a fantastic manager. They're now picking up to where they should be, which I knew they would. “It's going to be an entertaining game - they've scored 29 goals to our 26, so both teams are scoring goals. They've conceded 22 and we've conceded 13 so it all bodes well for a good football match. “How Paul sets up his teams is how football should be played and that's certainly how we go about our business. I'm really looking forward to an entertaining game between two two fantastic football teams.” Plymouth are expecting a new record crowd for Home Park in its current format, beating the 15,062 who watched their game against Swindon on New Year’s Day 2020, with the Blues set to take more than 1,500. “I don't know how many Ipswich have brought but they're going to travel in numbers,” Lowe added. “A lot of people have told me they haven't been down in 10 years but now they're back and seeing what we're doing. “We can't get carried away and expectations will rise through the roof, fans are allowed to do that but we have to stay level headed and keep going about our business as we've been doing. It'll be nice to see a packed Home Park this weekend. “As a player I'd have loved to have come here because if you give it your all the fans absolutely love you.” Lowe's side will be without midfielder Jordan Houghton, who is suspended having amassed five bookings already, but Argyle report no current injury problems. Town have had the edge over Argyle over the years, winning 21 games (20 in the league), losing 11 (11) and drawing 15 (15). In March at Portman Road, Troy Parrott’s first senior goal saw Paul Cook to his first win as Blues boss as Town defeated Argyle 1-0. The on-loan Tottenham striker seized on a poor Adam Lewis backpass in the fourth minute to grab the game's only goal with the three points seeing Town up into the final play-off place. At Home Park in December last year, two goals in two minutes from Jon Nolan and Kayden Jackson saw Town come from behind to beat Plymouth Argyle 2-1 following Pilgrims winger Danny Mayor’s red card. Luke Jephcott’s 14th-minute goal had given Argyle a 1-0 half-time lead but after one-time Town target Mayor had picked up his second yellow card for a trip on Armando Dobra on 70, Nolan and Jackson netted in the 73rd and 74th minutes to hand then-manager Paul Lambert a victory in his 100th game in charge of the Blues, who moved up to third as a result. Pilgrims centre-half Wilson was with the Blues between August 2019 and May 2021. The Wales international made 47 starts and two sub appearances for Town, scoring twice, and was named the supporters Player of the Year last season. Plymouth midfielder Conor Grant spent three months on loan with the Blues when an Everton player early in 2016/17, making four starts and three sub appearances. He moved to Home Park in July 2018 on a free transfer. Pilgrims winger Mayor joined the Devon club from Bury in July 2019 having held talks at Portman Road with regard to a move to the Blues. Saturday’s referee is Robert Lewis from Shrewsbury, who has shown 25 yellow and one red cards in nine games so far this season. Lewis’s last Town game was the 0-0 draw at Rochdale in April in which he yellow-carded only Blues loanee Josh Harrop. Prior to that he was in charge of the 2-0 home victory over Accrington Stanley in October last year in which he booked Luke Chambers and Cameron Burgess, who was then with the Lancastrians. Before that he took charge of the 1-1 draw at Wycombe Wanderers on New Year’s Day 2020 when he cautioned only former Blue and current Pilgrim Wilson and Luke Woolfenden. Squad from: Walton, Hladky, Donacien, Vincent-Young, Penney, Coulson, Edmundson, Nsiala, Burgess, Woolfenden, Morsy, Evans, Harper, El Mizouni, Fraser, Burns, Chaplin, Celina, Aluko, Edwards, Bonne, Pigott, Barry, Jackson, Norwood.
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