| Plymouth Argyle 0 |
| Bradford City 1 |
| Sarcevic 57 (pen) |
Written by Adam Raj (images by John Dewhirst)
The second part of the Devon double header saw the Bantams make the long old trip south to take on a Plymouth side in horrendous form and sat in the relegation places. The side who haven’t lived up to their pre-season hype under Bradfordian Tom Cleverley were likely seen as cannon fodder for a City side riding high in third by everyone outside of Valley Parade. Those long sufferers of us know that was never going to be the case, we’ve seen this script many times before. And just to add to it, everyone’s favourite Scotsman Derek Adams is back at Home Park.
In typical Graham Alexander fashion, he shuffled the pack again. Ciaran Kelly – who hadn’t been seen since the defeat to Burton Albion nearly a month ago – was throw in from the start. Ibou Touray moved to wing back and Tyreik Wright filled in for Bobby Pointon in that advanced role behind Stephen Humphrys.
Tom Cleverley had spoken in the week of starting fast and getting his side to score the first goal. He nearly had his wish in the opening minutes as Owen Oseni got in behind Aden Baldwin but Sam Walker was equal to his low effort which was well saved. It was a very early wake up call for City who were continuously turned with the home side playing lots of balls in behind in the opening stages.
Plymouth’s early enthusiasm dwindled and the game levelled into a quite scrappy and bitty affair with neither side displaying any real quality. City’s front three couldn’t get into the game and were starved of any form of service from wing backs who continue to be well marked. In the absence of any creativity in the middle of the pitch, it is becoming fairly straightforward to stifle the supply lines to whoever is playing in those front three positions.
In fact, City didn’t look like scoring in that first half. A marauding run from Joe Wright which caused pinball in the Plymouth box was about as threatening as the visitors looked in that first 45. And City could quite easily have found themselves behind, after Jamie Patterson scored for the hosts, only for Owen Dale to be judged offside in the build up.
It took nearly an hour for City to finally produce a real moment of quality. Humphrys picked up the ball on the left touch line, squared up Julio Pleguezuelo, knocked it past him, drove into the box and was pushed to the floor by the Spanish defender. Penalty to City. Rather unsurprisingly, it was a moment that has reignited the Humphrys debate – is he a striker? Is he a winger?
I think it’s clear that Humphrys is at his best when he is given freedom to get on the ball and run at defenders, utilising his pace and power to produce moments like he did today. Ultimately as a striker, he has found those in-game opportunities limited as he has to be the target man, the man who runs in behind and also the fox in the box. He can’t do everything and that is limiting the opportunities he has to utilise his best attributes.
I would like to see him more in a wide position as he is simply not a striker in our style of play for me. However, Alexander declared post match that Humphrys isn’t capable of producing the running statistics needed to play as one of the 10s – which is the main reason he doesn’t start there.
Taking today’s game in isolation, he was anonymous throughout, yet the one moment he found himself in his ‘preferred’ position, he produces a match winning moment and I’m not sure that can be overlooked.
Anyway, back to the game. Antoni Sarcevic dispatched the penalty calmly against his former side, sending Connor Hazard the wrong way. The 10/15 minutes after that goal saw City on top and looking to play on their hosts’ vulnerabilities. Humphrys again causing trouble out wide saw his deflected pass fall to Wright five yards out but Hazard was off his line quickly to smother his effort.
Plymouth huffed and puffed but created nothing of note. And that Wright effort aside, neither did City. And that ultimately meant back to back 1-0 wins and three clean sheets on the bounce.
On the face of it, that is a really solid answer to what has been a somewhat tricky run of form. Performances are still well short of what we saw at the start of the season, with the fluidity and spark missing, particularly from an attacking sense, where City have gone from being free scoring to struggling to create chances.
But the sign of a good side is winning when they’re not at their best. Still ticking along and not losing ground on those around them. Alexander knows recent performances are not sustainable to keep producing victories, however if City can limp their way into January and still be in the mix, then you’d like to think the injection of new attacking blood will help City get their mojo back.
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I assume, Adam, that you were at the game. I truly admire you and your 800 or so colleagues. You are a credit to yourselves and to the Club.
Regarding the game, I think the wind and the fast surface affected it. Plymouth were poor, but in my opinion there is no such thing a a bad away win.
2 below par performances, 2 wins.
Thanks again, Adam.
I think the Humphrys positioning is a non-debate.
He plays as a mobile forward and has licence to roam to where he wants.
That means, when he’s on his game, we get the best of both worlds, great driving run today leading to a goal, great box play against Barnsley getting a goal.
He needs to be a bit smarter and driven, i.e. look at Sarcevic – as there is a very good player there.
Was it a good game? Yes we won.
We were brilliant against Barnsley and drew. Pretty average the last 2 games and won both. Football!
playing badly and winning can be the sign of a great team. Unfortunately when it becomes regular it’s only a matter of time before your luck runs out. GA has gone back to taking off a midfielder for a defender. Hardly a vote of confidence in the midfielders on the bench. Maybe he also thinks the pool of midfielders is overall physically too small. In January, I hope we loan a central striker and midfielder physically better than what we have.
Plymouth puzzled me.
With 20 mins to go I felt Plymouth were well in the game, had the crowd with them and were the most likely to score.
The keeper then ‘goes down’ so they can have a team talk. The game restarts, they look flat, lose the momentum and City get back into the game.
The last 15 mins or so were great for City in my view. They pressed well, won the ball up the pitch and managed the game well.
I understand that its part of the modern game but its so delicious when this sort of gamesmanship back fires!
With the Humphrys debate, part of me wants to go it’s so simple stick him out wide and some of his best moments this season have come from him in wide positions. But, the other part of me goes it’s not that simple. By which i mean, who would drop Sarcevic and Pointon to play Humphrys out wide? Also, we play a fluid system which does allow Humphrys to drop out wide at times and go across that front line. As we’ve seen many times this season, when he’s helped us score or almost score.
Is it frustrating seeing Humphrys trying to hold the ball up and repeatedly lose it, yes… we do need to play to his strengths which is allowing him to run in behind or pick the ball up around the edge of the box, not trying to fight with a defender for it as a target man.
Would I love to see Humphrys out wide more, yes, however, Graham isn’t going to divert from his original plan willingly and he’s earnt our trust, especially given we are 2nd in League 1 in December.
Replying to my own comment, as it stopped letting me type… Regarding the back to back wins, I know the performances haven’t been vintage but I was more concerned about this run of fixtures against teams in and around the relegation zone than I was against some of the higher up teams. The fact we’ve won back to back games is brilliant and these two results make the Bolton draw feel all the better. Let’s hope we can keep the momentum against Port Vale!
Was at the game – a few ‘plus’ points: 1. solid performance by Ciaran Kelly, recalled in defence; 2. good late contribution by sub Brad Halliday; 3. Curtis Tilt on the bench after injury; 4. great Cornish pasties on sale in the away end
I was also at the game – which, in general and if we are honest, was a poor game of football but, although Martin didn’t mention either in his post above, I did think both Wright and Humphreys had good games.
On Humphreys, I’m not sure he really is that ‘quick’ (certainly not in a Neufville or Wright sense) – I admit he’s skilful and strong. Buzby Bantam is correct that the idea of dropping either Sarcevic or Pointon to accommodate him is madness but my other fear would be, who would we play in his place up front if he played out wide? By all (even WOTP) accounts, Cook is not fit (and disrupts our style), Kavanagh clearly doesn’t figure in Alexander’s plans and Swan, for all his running, has struggled to make an impression. I’d love to think we’d sign a striker in January but, barring that unlikely turn of events, I suspect ‘Striker’ Humphreys is our best bet.
Agree, Wright (Tyreik and Joe!) and Humphrys had good games
So I have to hold my hand up after giving City some grief lately on the back of the poor run we’ve had as 9 pts from the last 3 games is a great return, so credit where credit’s due.
However I’d still temper that a little bit as I’d hardly call todays game ‘brilliant’ and those 3 wins have all bean against teams towards the bottom of the table so you’d generally expect to win those – but they’ve hardly been inspiring. Plymouth especially as we were woeful and any neutral watching would have had us being the team propping up if that if they we asked!
Yesterday was better – particularly the 2nd half.
The real test now comes against Orient and Wigan on boxing day – have we really turned that form around?
Let’s see.