There is a lot of pressure on a club that drops down in to League One. Instantly the club has the pressure of being one of the favourites so other teams see you as one of their biggest games of the year and up their performance accordingly. After a poor season last time round, Plymouth are looking to bring success back to Home Park.
New manager Peter Reid has made a good start to the season, winning 1-0 at fellow promotion seekers, Southampton. Indeed, Southampton are one of the Betfair Football tips to top the league. An opening day win at against one of the favourites for the title will have given the Pilgrims a massive confidence boost for the long season ahead.
Peter Reid still has a lot of work to do to trim Argyle's enormous squad which he inherited from the Paul Sturrock era. There has been some movement on this front, but they need to get rid of four or five more players. The current squad has in the region of 28 players on the books which is far too many for this league.
There is, however, some good news on the player front for the Green Army. Marcel Seip is back at the club after falling out with Sturrock last year, which resulted in the Dutch defender going out on loan to Blackpool and Sheffield United. Hopefully Reid will be able to convince Seip to stay at Argyle this season, he would be one of the best defenders in this league.
Plymouth have taken a punt on Northern Ireland striker Rory Patterson. The 26-year-old has a prolific record in Ireland and could prove to be a nice bit of business by Argyle. Previously in England, Patterson played for FC United of Manchester in the lower leagues and scored over 100 goals in his 120 odd appearances. Another bonus for Plymouth is the emergence of some talented youth players coming through. The most exciting prospect is perhaps Joe Mason. The 19-year-old put in some promising performances last season and scored three goals for his boyhood club.
Plymouth have a squad more than capable of scoring in this league, Bradley Wright Phillips, Steve MacLean and Rory Fallon will be confident of bagging a few after poor seasons last year. Plymouth will face a tough battle to get out of this league and Leeds showed how easy it was to get stuck for a few years. The Leeds United betting made them favourites to go up for a number of seasons, but it took them quite some time to drag themselves up.
Along with fellow relegated sides Sheffield Wednesday and Peterborough, Argyle will also face competition from Southampton, Charlton and new threat Brighton. Despite the competition, this season will be Argyle's best chance of getting back into the Championship.
No comments:
Post a Comment