Plymouth Argyle 1 Charlton Athletic 0
From after the first 30 minutes that was a very poor performance today in Jacko’s first game as permanent manager…. was always going to happen wasn’t it.
We weren’t great in that first half hour, but with the travelling Addicks in fine voice we were dominant and should have made our superiority count. Stockley had our best chance but headed unmarked straight at their keeper.
The Pilgrims slowly came back into it, and then scored right on half-time, in fact a little over, when Agard precisely returned a MacGillivray save from a quick break.
The Addicks’ have started many 2nd half’s at full throttle under Jacko, but it just did not happen today. Balls were long and aimless and bypassed our midfield as Lee and Gilbey were mostly spectators with Dobson not his 8/10 self.
The worst offenders in stifling our play were the wing backs. DJ was just not at the races giving the ball away and mostly fouling any green shirt that moved. On the other side Souare is just not good enough, and only emphasized the need for some remedial work in January.
The 2nd half was rough and Plymouth should have been out of sight, but in the last few minutes we eventually got ourselves into some promising situations, but dead balls were inept, final balls were ineffective and Charlie Kirk in particular would have wished he stayed at home.
Kirk did get a cross in right at the death but it eluded everyone including Inniss thrown up front to try to salvage an undeserved point. The return of Inniss as a late sub, a rare plus point from the game.
A bad day at the office and another defeat on the road, but Jacko’s plans would have been thrown a curved ball with Washington, Famewo and Davison all testing positive to Covid late in the week.
Washington and Famewo were certainly missed and maybe others were feeling under the weather. They certainly played like it.
Sadly this is the chapter we and every other club are about to enter as the latest variant of Covid plays havoc with lives and society.
We will need better on Boxing Day and hopefully Covid allows it.
Jacko: “I think they deserved to win in the end. They had a couple of breakaways that could have put it to bed but we’re still in the game, knocking on the door at the end there. I’m disappointed in the performance, I don’t think that’s a fair reflection of us today.”
Photo credit: Kyle Andrews.
Chicago Addick 
I feared the worst when I saw the team. Souare has not shown up as a worthwhile signing in previous games and Purrington is not a good choice to play in the back three. I would have considered Gunter and Elerwere better options and kept Purrington at wingback. The other option would have been to revert to a back four. Pre match I said to my friend that we would be vunerable down the left hand side of our defence. Also It mustn’t be forgotten that Washington does drop deep and supports the left side of the defence so his absence was also critical.
Purrington would have been far more valuable at left wing back. Agree one of Gunter or preferably Elerewe should have started there. As for DJ he had the proverbial nightmare.
Unfortunately we lost three players – including two certain starters the day before the match so all the prep work had to be revisited. Conor Washington in particular has been outstanding these last few games and he left a big gap. He gets in between the midfield and forward lines very effectively and Leko just wasn’t able to replicate what he does.
I’m also wondering in the wingback strategy is starting to get sussed, recently Cambridge and Ipswich sent out formations to try and nullify the impact that Purrington and DJ were having – we won those matches but they had less room to play than in previous games.