Last Saturday I watched in disbelief as Argyle scored twice in the last five minutes to gain a dramatic point against promotion chasing Southend United.
The Green’s had trudged off at half time looking disheartened and even the most optimistic of Argyle fans would have struggled to predict that they would snatch a point from the game. But something almost magical happened in the second half. Argyle’s performance was much improved and resilient. Indeed they had the better of the second half yet the Southend defence was proving tough to break down. Finally in the 86th minute a snapshot by Nick Chadwick pulled a one back for Argyle and from then on the Southend defence was quaking, the fierce Home Park crowd roared the Pilgrims on and two minutes later they had rescued a point.
This is not the first time in recent weeks that Argyle have pulled off such a recovery however. Against Burton Albion they kept going and Simon Walton scored a dramatic 89th minute winner. The following week Argyle faced more tough opposition in Crawley and trailed from the stroke of half time. Argyle rarely threatened one of the fiercest defences in the league but in the 90th minute Frenchman Maxime Blanchard equalised emphatically with an overhead kick.
Despite their lowly league position, it is obvious that team spirit in the Argyle camp is sky high, and Carl Fletcher has installed the kind of mentality that saw Norwich gain so many late points last season in the Championship – it’s not over until the final whistle.
Although these late points don’t do much at a glance for Argyle’s survival hopes, you have to look at the bigger picture. These late comebacks have been against some of the divisions promotion hopefuls, who Argyle were expected to lose heavily too. If our relegation rivals fail to take anything from their games against these sides then it is immediately a point gained on them. The other thing is that these results will be keeping the squad’s morale high, and going into some crucial games we have coming up in the next few weeks, high morale will hopefully lead the way to some more positive results.
In the coming weeks, weather permitting, Argyle face Macclesfield, Barnet, Accrington and then the most crucial game of them all, Dagenham at home. Three of those games are highly winnable for the greens. Macclesfield are in terrible form and are dropping down the league table like a stone. Barnet and Dagenham & Redbridge are two of Argyle’s relegation rivals and they will look to take three points from both games anyway, but with the Green’s playing at home I am very confident of victories over these sides.
Since Fletcher took over the managerial reigns Home Park has become a bit of a fortress and Argyle have only lost twice on their own patch since Fletcher became manager. Fletcher himself has even credited the point taken against Southend to the Home Park crowd who kept the noise levels up despite being 2-0 down for most of the game.
It won’t be until we get a lot closer to the end of the season that we start to see the impact of those points that Argyle have gained. But I am sure that come the end, those points could be the difference between survival and relegation for Argyle this season.
By Plymouth blogger Sam Barker. Check out his blog at: http://samtbarker.wordpress.com/
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