Plymouth Argyle 0Bradford City 1Sarcevic 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.
‹ Let’s get ambition back on the table
Categories: Match Reviews
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