Home Park, 2025-12-26 16:00
3 weeks is a long time in football…
It’s hard to believe that it’s only been three weeks since Argyle held their Fans Forum. The team had just lost 0-3 at home to Northampton and had a six point margin going into the line. Top scorer and only goal threat Tolaj was suspended for three games following his red card in that game, and everyone assumed no goals would be scored until he returned. The atmosphere was generally quite so fierce and there were few who understood the club’s decision not to fire Tom Cleverley despite lousy form for more than a month.
Since then, Argyle have won 4 games and lost one (somewhat unluckily against top team Bradford). They were obviously a much better team than Doncaster last time and it’s suddenly very hard to believe that relegation to League Two is realistic given the way we played there. The upturn in form is of course caused to some extent by the return of several key players after long injury absences, but if you’re going to throw crap at the coach when things are going badly, you have to give him some praise when the team starts to perform again, right?
Returning players but also new injuries
The two attacking midfielders Xavier Amaechi and Caleb Watts are training fully. Amaechi has only made brief appearances so far but scored the 5-1 goal against Doncaster and may be ready to start again. My guess is we’ll see Watts for the first time since September 6th on Boxing Day, at least from the bench. Center back Julio Pleguezuelo was missing last time but may still be relevant, we’ll see.
Scottish left-back Jack Mackenzie is still a ways off though, he hasn’t played at all so far. Left-back Brendan Galloway is in Morocco playing the African Championship with Zimbabwe (who came close to beating Egypt) – he won’t be back until the New Year at the earliest.
New injuries include veteran Jamie Paterson, young talent Tegan Finn and Oxford loanee Owen Dale, all three primarily wing players. We seem to have a knack for getting everyone on the same team injured at the same time! Paterson and Finn should only be a couple of weeks but Dale is gone 6-10 weeks unfortunately. However, it sounds as if Argyle intend to keep him and not end the loan in January.
The clubs have not met since 2009. Then Argyle won 4-1 in the Championship during an otherwise rather difficult season that ended with relegation. They wouldn’t have turned down a replay in front of the Boxing Day crowd, it’s more than time to start recreating the away form in front of their own fans!
