PLYMOUTH

Leaving the ground at full time my son turned to me and commented, “That was a shrug of a match”. When asked what he meant, his reply was that it was a game to shrug your shoulders at and move on without either clapping or booing at the final whistle.

Thinking about it I know exactly where he was coming from, although I did put my hands together about three times as the players came off before turning my back and walking away.

With the defence sorted – that’s four clean sheets in the last five games – I’m now fully confident that we won’t be relegated. Previously I never rode with those who blithely based all such belief on there always being at least two teams worse than we were.

We now have the 10th best defensive record in L2. Interestingly we’ve let in four fewer goals than Chris Wilder’s Cobblers.

But it is at the other end of the pitch where we have problems that need to be solved if we are to truly make progress. Clean sheets alone do not bring three points. Eighteen teams have scored more than we have. (The highest scorers are Northampton who have found the back of the net 17 times more than us. Which team is playing the more attacking football, I wonder?)

Looking at our starting line up I asked myself where the goals were coming from. To be honest it’s like that every week because the suspended Danny Hylton stopped scoring from open play some time ago. I do however believe we have a goal scorer in our ranks and his name is James Roberts. I’m not saying he should have started the game, but would have liked to have seen him given more than a 20 minute run out at the end.

And what can you say about Patrick Hoban? There’s this “once he gets one he’ll get more” theory being peddled but I’m not sure. He scored in almost every game he played for Dundalk but has not registered once in about ten and a half matches for us and that’s a lot of game time. Like everyone else I’m willing him to break his duck. I’ve got total admiration for the way he sticks at it but there was a time yesterday in the second half when I was again wondering if he was just a bit out of his depth but then he’d produce some more good hold up play and feed a couple of decent passes to colleagues. He should really be putting away some of the chances he missed though.

“Come on, we need water, more water. It’s not muddy enough yet.”

One of the big problems we have with our attacking is that we don’t do it at a very quick pace. Whether that is down to our game plan or the pitch is debatable and I’d vowed not to keep mentioning the pitch but it was in such as state that it can’t be ignored. The players are coming out now and openly criticising it and the stadium company are hardly maintaining it in a state that is fit for purpose. Some of us pay to watch a football match but playing football on that mixture of mud and grass is a big challenge in itself, let alone having eleven opponents to face. There was one occasion just in front of the dug out when the sticky sludge refused to let Michael Collins do anything meaningful with the round ball at his feet. A vast chunk of our rental payments should be withheld until this mess is sorted.

Another noticeable problem up top is that there seems to be very little understanding between the guys we have there trying to do the business. When are we next going to have partnerships where players constantly link up well with a noticeable understanding of each others’ games?

Individually though there were some good performances and I’d go along with Alex MacDonald as man of the match. He gets stuck in and in addition to some attacking threat plays intelligently when it comes to doing the defensive stuff required. If George Baldock had pushed forward and was out of position there would be a pretty good chance that Mac had spotted this and would do the covering necessary. This can’t be said about too many players who fill his position.

I like the look of Kemar Roofe too, but my family are unsure, with my son thinking that he should have been withdrawn instead of Callum O’Dowda when Roberts eventually came on. I thought COD had not been that great but was told he was “putting a shift in”. We all see things differently.

Although it may have been another case of failing to win on Kassam’s mud (can hardly say on our turf, can I) all in all it wasn’t a bad point. Putting aside their slip ups against Bury and Stevenage (teams we’ve recently beaten) Plymouth are one of the division’s form sides and have the meanest defence around. In Drew Talbot they had the best player on view. He was always available in space and didn’t play a misplaced pass until the final minutes.

Ruben Reid is a handful and he came so much closer to scoring than anyone else. His first half header that hit the bar bounced down and then onto a post and somehow not over the line was one we got away with. Plymouth can claim to be unlucky on that incident alone but, whilst we have no case to put forward for all three points, can legitimately argue the draw. But I would do so without any genuine excitement.

On the entertainment front it’s not just us though. There were 11 League two games on this particular Saturday. Total goals scored were just 20 and of the 22 teams playing ten failed to score.

My second last point has to be with regard to the gate. On first sight 8,057 is impressive. 1,290 travelling Pilgrims is proper impressive. That leaves 6767 home fans which appears to be impressive. However there is a big BUT. This “but” concerns the numbers that are actually paying to get in. I’m totally for the club trying whatever it deems necessary to attract future paying customers but there has to be some sensible limit. I think they’re dishing out freebies to boys (and girls?) teams not just in the 100s but possibly the 1000s. I’ve heard it said by more than one club, more than once, “We’ve been given another 40 tickets again.” I’ve also heard it said that some kids have tried to sell some of these free tickets. That many of the freeloaders are not that interested in watching standard L2 fare, even if it doesn’t cost a penny, was pretty evident in the numbers that were exiting the Kassam long before the end. I would also have thought that some people who would in the past have paid to get in are now able to get their hands on a freebie given that there are so many of them floating about. The club also needs to be careful that it doesn’t piss off its truly loyal fan base, some of whom have been parting with money for season tickets for decades.

And finally, I ventured into Headington to the White Hart for a post match pint. The Brit is still there, the Standard is still there, the Black Boy is still there. Although all are still with us in 2015 they really live in the past as far as I’m concerned. In times gone by I’ve drunk in each and every one of them before heading to watch my team play in OUR ramshackle old four sided ground. As I drove by I glanced towards the Manor Hospital. I hardly ever go back to this part of Oxford but when I do it always brings a lump to my throat. I know I’ve managed it but moving on can be incredibly difficult. Up the Manor.