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Reply | Is it arrogance....?
at 15:37 3 May 2023
As an Argyle fan this for me too. I have seen a lot of League 1 in my many years following the Greens and this is without doubt the strongest League 1 ever. I'm still pinching myself we are up with Ipswich having seen off the likes of Wednesday, Barnsley, Derby, Bolton, Portsmouth and Charlton and having to get 97 points to be sure.
The way Ipswich have just brushed aside play off teams like some of the aforementined by 3 or 4 goals, even on their own pitches in the last few months of the season has been nothing short of remarkable.
It they are spanking teams like that on a regular basis I can only see them with a few more additions comfortably coping with what most of the Championship has to offer. If it was my team I wouldn't feel arrogant thinking we were looking to challenge at the top end of the table next season. |
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Reply | Interesting read on Plymouth not improving their ground
at 15:25 3 May 2023
Absolutely correct and the chairman has it right in getting the infrastructure in place first to progress on the field and grow as a club. The new Brickfields site is going to cost 20 million to upgrade our academy to level 2 and provide a base also for the Women's team. The club has to fund 11 million of this. The recent acquisition of the former Goals site adjoining the first team training pitches next to the stadium will cost several million also with more pitches being constructed, a gymnasium, club offices, which will free up space in the grandstand concourse and also provide extra corporate facilities.
The upper Grandstand issue was that old wooden seats were replaced by new plastic seats which were bigger and caused leg room to be tight and by putting offices at the back of the concourse the concourse wasn't really spacious or safe enough for a full grandstand either. We will have to wait for next summer to resolve this which will then see a small increase in capacity from the current 16,700 to 17,000 or so.
It is frustrating as we could have averaged 17,500 this season and nearer 20,000 next season but we have to live with it for now. A full stadium has certainly seen a great atmosphere at home games this season and increased season ticket and entry prices next season will help a little too.
The whole set up from the chairman, chief executive and coaching staff etc is the best I have known in nearly 60 years and the future looks bright as an Argyle fan. The chairman's 20 American based investors who dipped their toes in the water with a 4.5 million injection this year will I think contribute more this season and will I think eventually take the club forward when the chairman feels his finances have taken us as far as they can.
I also forsee the club being marketed to an Americam audience as well through our own tv station with the link to the Mayflower and the Pilgrim Fathers. The Americans are always up for a good story as we have seen with the involvement of Ryan Reynolds and his mate at Wrexham.
For capacity to be increased anytime soon the fans will need to show their continued support and regularly sell out for several years as we try to become an established Championship club. Should the Americans then feel they want to go for bigger things then a proper expansion to 23,000 to 25,000 could then be looked at. Filling in the two corners at huge cost just to add 2,000 or so seats is just not cost effective at present.
For what it's worth I don't think we will go back down next season. The club and our shrewd chairman have looked at the step up in detail and feel they can finish around the top of the bottom third next season, so about 17th? I trust their judgement as they have got very little wrong so far. The play offs were the aim this season and they out performed that so with a fair wind we can do the same next season.
They will be well on top of things with player recruitment as they were in January when four new faces came through the door in the first few days of the transfer window.
I'm sure Ipswich will have no such concerns and I fully expect them to be a top 6 team next season with very few additions to their squad.
We will never be a Liverpool or Arsenal but we should be aiming to emulate the likes of Ipswich, Norwich, Brentford, Brighton and Bournemouth in the coming years. |
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Reply | Plymouth goal today
at 01:20 30 Apr 2023
Most things have gone our way? Bolton , Miller and Galloway out virtually all season. Grant and Azaz half the season, Whittaker recalled by Swansea in January when he was in outstanding form, Ennis, Scarr and Randell missing for many games in recent weeks. Losing the best keeper in the division for over a third of the season. It's hardly all gone our way, yet we have overcome all the setbacks.
The deflection today was from one of 22 shots in a game we dominated, it was far from a lucky win, it was a convincing 1-0 daft as that sounds. It was Ladapo who showed us the way at Home Park with his outrageous deflection off Scarr. We just mastered the technique thereafter.
If we win next week and clinch the title we will have won 9 of our final 10 games for 27 points, just 1 point less than Ipswich who have been in incredible form. To have begun the final 10 games only 2 points ahead of you it will be a fantastic achievement to hold off a team in such form which is likely to finish with 9 wins and a draw and is it 14 and a draw in total?
Schumacher and his team have done a fantastic job and probably mastered the 5 subs rule this season better than any team as borne out by the fact that two thirds of our goals came in the second half of games, largely when 3 or 4 midfield and attacking subs were introduced to finish off games.
No doubt we will have 4 or 5 loanees again next season and hopefully they will be of a higher quality than this season's even, now we can offer Championship football. Clubs will be happy to loan us players having seen how we have developed and treated our loanees this season and last season.
We are an extremely well run club under the current regime and while we won't join the basket cases losing 20 milion a season or more in the Championship I think we will be able to compete if we continue to act smarter than some clubs especially as if looks likely the American consortium introduced by our chairman who invested last season decide to invest a bit more now we are up a level.
We rely heavily on data analytics for recruitment as do Brighton and Brentford and while Brighton have turned half a dozen 6 to 8 million signings into 50 to 70 million sales we have to do it on a smaller scale. We signed four 20/21 year olds in January with an eye to next season and giving us strength in depth for the run in and these are the type of players we identify, ones we can hopefully improve and coach in to million pound players.
Cooper no doubt will go for a handsome fee if he shows his worth in the Championship once back from his injury and midfielder Randell is another who could earn us good money.
We have bought land to upgrade to a category 2 academy over the next 12 months and better players should then come through the system as they have already started to.
We aren't in a position to splash out million pound plus fees and high wages on players with little resale value due to age but would probably splash that sort of fee out for a Whittaker who we would hope to improve and sell on for an even larger fee.
It has been said this week by club staff that they feel we are very capable of finishing at or near the top of the bottom third of the Championship next season so about 17th out of 24 which will do me first season up and hopefully we can go from there.
Ipswich I would expect to be certainly in the top 10 and quite possibly top 6.
It's been an incredible League 1 this season and Mr Mariner must be a happy man looking down on us the way it has turned out. |
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Reply | Up For Grabs Now!
at 07:10 27 Mar 2023
I keep reading about Plymouth's record on the road. They actually have the 4th best away record in the division which is often overlooked due to their phenomenal home record. The recent 8 points from their last 6 away games is not that surprising or the worst points haul of the top 4 since January when you consider it coincided with their toughest run of fixtures all season. Ipswich, Wednesday, Bolton and Peterborough away and Pompey, Derby and Charlton at home. They have played all the top 6 home and away now with just the solitary defeat by 1-0 at Wednesday.
The top four all averaging 2 points per game at this stage of the season is unheard of and with Wednesday finally having a hiccup it has suddenly become 2 from 4 rather than 1 from 3 for a top two spot.
From an Argyle point of view I pray our Devon rivals up the road can get something off Barnsley on Tuesday which will make the top 2 very difficult for them or at least that Barnsley and yourselves draw your fixture as neither of you look like dropping points currently.
We suffered badly last season with 4 key players injured for a very tough April run in and missed out eventually on a play off spot with 80 points as our lack of squad depth was exposed. We addressed that this season by signing 5 players in early January. Four 20/21 year olds to develop for the future and to provide more squad depth and also the loan of Matete to give us the Morsy type player we lacked.
It was as well we did with our top player Cooper ruled out for the season and the spine of the team Scarr, Randell and Cosgrove missing for several weeks recently as well as the long term injuries of Grant, Galloway and Bolton.
We have come through it though and still cling on to top spot. Whether we can hold on to a top 2 spot I really don't know. The fixtures on paper at least are favourable but as Wednesday saw yesterday take nothing for granted. We can only aim for 2 points per game which we have managed all season to give us 96 points and hope. Nine times out of ten that would win the league never mind secure second place but even that might not be enough with Ipswich in top form and Barnsley too.
As the thread title says it really is all up for grabs now and it should be a fantastic few weeks ahead with no doubt a surprise result or two thrown in the mix to keep it very interesting. |
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Reply | If virtually every team we play against has a low block...
at 19:27 16 Feb 2023
Yes, it's very data driven as is the recruitment at Brighton and Brentford. Our chairman made his fortune in the States with a very data driven approach to his work.
It has seen us barely make a mistake in the transfer market for several years. We try to buy hungry young players for free or perhaps a few hundred thousand as we did several in January, add value to them by good coaching and sell them on for a handsome profit hopefully. Obviously currently on a smaller scale to Brighton who bought half a dozen for an average of about 7 million and have sold them on for an average of about 50 million. The Chairman knows we can't match the playing budget of Wednesday or Ipswich or fork out million pound fees and his mantra is,"We have to work smarter" to compete. All our targets are players we have monitored for about 6 months. Several of the players who joined in January we missed out on last summer but we eventually got them. We also have a clear "no dickheads" policy in the changing rooms and the last such player we had was Mr Ladapo as it happens who helped us to relegation before the new regime took over. I don't know how far we can get with the current set up and approach but a consortium of 20 American investors are now involved having put in 4.5 million to test the water, with the Chairman I think looking to hand the reins over once he feels he has taken us as far as he feels he can.
The consortium includes mainly people with a top sporting background including an ice hockey star who won most valuable player awards in the States?Canadian top league. It will be an interesting ride ahead for sure. |
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Reply | If virtually every team we play against has a low block...
at 16:45 16 Feb 2023
Camara has a fantastic engine and covers the ground quickly, nicking the ball and regaining possession and also carrying the ball forward. Where he falls down is in the final third of the field, his final pass or shot too often letting him down.
He was injured late last season and all through the close season up until joining Ipswich. I thought the "injury" was convenient to force a transfer but it seems it wasn't. To sell him for 500k or whatever it was when he only had about 9 months left on his contract and in view of the fact he would have had no part to play anyway in the current season was with hindsight smart business for Argyle and about the most we could have expected to get for him bearing in mind he would have had no value at all by the season's end. From Argyle's point of view, 500k in the bank and freeing up a wage for a replacement rather than an injured player has worked out really well. To get an upgrade in Jay Matete in January was a further bonus.
As you say he has been a waste of a transfer fee and wage for you this season which is frustrating. We have been there with James Bolton who has hardly played in 2 seasons after joining from Pompey and Mikel Miller who has hardly kicked a ball in anger since joining from Rotherham in the close season. |
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