Just back (Exeter)

Motorservices wrote:

Remember We hardly had our best starting 11, no Tommy, Alex, Holmes, Clint or Hoskins, we played two youth strikers, one hadnt played in the league for us since 2013 and had been on loan at Truro (the club ahead of you in your area) and the other has played around 20mins of first team football

So yes blame the defeat on having 5 players out, but also remember we didnt have 'our normal' starting 11 either

Its poss clear we have much more depth in our squad, and no loan players

Whereas we have no squad depth and too many loan players.

You also have a chairman who isn't more interested in protecting his pension pot.

Exeter with their three thousand odd fans, and decent squad( no loans) Argyle with their Eight thousand fans and small squad with 5 loans..... In jimmy we Trust.

SeymourButts wrote:

Motorservices wrote:

Remember We hardly had our best starting 11, no Tommy, Alex, Holmes, Clint or Hoskins, we played two youth strikers, one hadnt played in the league for us since 2013 and had been on loan at Truro (the club ahead of you in your area) and the other has played around 20mins of first team football

So yes blame the defeat on having 5 players out, but also remember we didnt have 'our normal' starting 11 either

Its poss clear we have much more depth in our squad, and no loan players

Whereas we have no squad depth and too many loan players.

You also have a chairman who isn't more interested in protecting his pension pot.

But remember our Chairman is paid a wage, doesnt put in like 'most chairman' and the club rely on a gift of 100K a year from the trust members.

you can hate your owner/chairman, we cant, he was elected by the trust membership, if the shit hits the fan ours wont do a thing and wont get a penny from ECC

sufferedsince 68 wrote:

Exeter with their three thousand odd fans, and decent squad( no loans) Argyle with their Eight thousand fans and small squad with 5 loans..... In jimmy we Trust.

you dont get 8K every week, anyway, im not bothered, we beat you 2-1 in your own back yard, the scoreline makes it look like you actually stood a chance, but in truth you didnt really deserve one goal

The days of most chairmen running or even owning a football club for no financial reward are long gone.

"Putting in" these days, describes the act of lending a football club money at very high interest rates, a far larger return than Joe Normal would get from a bulk standard ISA. It's another earner.

I am not talking about the mega rich foreign contingent, as they have their own reasoning and game plans.

Motorservices wrote:

Remember We hardly had our best starting 11, no Tommy, Alex, Holmes, Clint or Hoskins, we played two youth strikers, one hadnt played in the league for us since 2013 and had been on loan at Truro (the club ahead of you in your area) and the other has played around 20mins of first team football

So yes blame the defeat on having 5 players out, but also remember we didnt have 'our normal' starting 11 either

Its poss clear we have much more depth in our squad, and no loan players

This is so true.

I've yet to hear any manager, in any league, highlight the other team's injury list and say that it made a difference.

Adams hasn't blamed the absence of five players but then he hasn't had to.

The media, in all its forms, have done it for him.

Motorservices wrote:

Remember We hardly had our best starting 11, no Tommy, Alex, Holmes, Clint or Hoskins, we played two youth strikers, one hadnt played in the league for us since 2013 and had been on loan at Truro (the club ahead of you in your area) and the other has played around 20mins of first team football

So yes blame the defeat on having 5 players out, but also remember we didnt have 'our normal' starting 11 either

Its poss clear we have much more depth in our squad, and no loan players

Yes. I'm sure you can feel the pain of us having Reuben out, whose last game against you ended in a hat trick, by not having 'Clint' available for selection.

God knows the damage you'd have done if you had Clint and the power 5 starting.

ejh wrote:

Motorservices wrote:

Remember We hardly had our best starting 11, no Tommy, Alex, Holmes, Clint or Hoskins, we played two youth strikers, one hadnt played in the league for us since 2013 and had been on loan at Truro (the club ahead of you in your area) and the other has played around 20mins of first team football

So yes blame the defeat on having 5 players out, but also remember we didnt have 'our normal' starting 11 either

Its poss clear we have much more depth in our squad, and no loan players

Yes. I'm sure you can feel the pain of us having Reuben out, whose last game against you ended in a hat trick, by not having 'Clint' available for selection.

God knows the damage you'd have done if you had Clint and the power 5 starting.

No it actually shows you are a one player team, stop living in the past, last season is over and done with, as i dont think the football league will allow last seasons result to stand this season

Fact is you lost to a better team, that team decided to field to youth players untried at league level and we still won, that says more about you than us

Dont worry, there is a helpline for you EJH its plymouth 121212

Such a one man team that Reuben has missed about 75% of matches this season, and without him we have managed to go top of the league, 6 points clear of 4th place.

ejh wrote:

Such a one man team that Reuben has missed about 66% of matches this season and we are still 6 points clear off the playoff places.

more than likely be second by 10pm tomorrow, the slide has started, the panic loan signing are happening, midtable beckons, you are on a down turn, as we are on an upturn, strength in depth

But dont worry, reid scored a hat trick against us last season

Our players are not dead. They are injured.

They will come back one by one, then we will resume going about winning games and taking the title.

Are we going to struggle for a while, of course. Gloat while you can because we won't be losing games for long.

ejh wrote:

Such a one man team that Reuben has missed about 75% of matches this season, and without him we have managed to go top of the league, 6 points clear of 4th place.

Good to see that you are worried about getting another dicking in the play offs.

Motorservices wrote:

ejh wrote:

Such a one man team that Reuben has missed about 66% of matches this season and we are still 6 points clear off the playoff places.

more than likely be second by 10pm tomorrow, the slide has started, the panic loan signing are happening, midtable beckons, you are on a down turn, as we are on an upturn, strength in depth

But dont worry, reid scored a hat trick against us last season  

Coming into that game you'd won 1 game in 7 league matches. That's a shit upturn.

Hugh Watt wrote:

Motorservices wrote:

ejh wrote:

Such a one man team that Reuben has missed about 66% of matches this season and we are still 6 points clear off the playoff places.

more than likely be second by 10pm tomorrow, the slide has started, the panic loan signing are happening, midtable beckons, you are on a down turn, as we are on an upturn, strength in depth

But dont worry, reid scored a hat trick against us last season  

Coming into that game you'd won 1 game in 7 league matches. That's a shit upturn.

And we bossed the game and made you look what you are......shite, dont worry all teams that rely on loan players get found out, ala Yeovil

ejh wrote:

charleymouse wrote:

ejh wrote:

At the start of the season, McCormick, Hartley, McHugh, Boateng and Reuben Reid would have been considered not only first teamers, but 5 of our best first team players.

No team at any standard would be comfortable losing 5 out of the club's best 7 players (add Nelson and Carey).

It's not Derek Adams's fault, it's not James BrentKs fault. The fans just need to suck it up and hope the physio earns his Christmas bonus.

Surely the lack of cover in the squad has something to do with JB. Is it normal for a professional club which is top of its league to bring in a CB who comes in on the Thursday, trains once with the squad then plays in a losing effort on the Saturday? Quality cover should have been there already, why wasn't it?

Well let's start at GK. We had two keepers for a long spell before we worked out it was quite expensive and that keepers are rarely injured or banned. So we got rid of Jake Cole and spent his wages elsewhere, which was the right decision. That arrangement was fine until about two years later when McCormick gets injured, and suddenly JB is a tightwad who is costing us promotion. Despite us having a £250,000 England U21 in goal as well.

Then at CB. We started the season with 3 high quality CBs. They were so good DA converted one to a DM. Again the arrangement was fine when it got us 5 points clear at the top of the league, but now we have lost a game it was shambolic all along. How can you not have any quality cover, etc.? Well we did. He was just playing another position, by which he became injured too, as did his partner at centre mid.

A long story short, it is extremely unfortunate to have literally half of our strongest side unavailable. It is the equivalent of Manchester City having Joe Hart, Vincent Kompany, Yaya Toure, Fernandinho and Sergio Aguero all out at once. They have all the money in the world, can loan the highest calibre loans available in th transfer market, and are they going to adequately replace those players? Are they going to maintain top of the league form missing all of those players? Of course not. They spent 25 million on Wilfriend Bony, but he is not the striker Aguero is, and Mangala cannot hold a candle to the form of Kompany.

It is exactly the same at our level. Brent cannot afford two McCormicks, two Hartleys and two Reuben Reids. When we don't have them, be prepared that without them we are going to struggle, and Premier League and England U21 internationals on loan is as decent an attempt to replace them as the chairman and manager can really try.

Well, you've certainly put plenty of words in my mouth there, I'm surprised you had any left to express yourself... I don't really know what you're on about with the Man City comparison, but if, with the injuries City have in this little scenario, they went on a pisspoor run the equivalent of Argyle's current one (inc tonight), there would certainly be big questions about the replacements.

Did Adams convert McHugh to DM because he wanted to or out of necessity? Genuine question. But the point is if you are using a guy who would have been the spare CB, or a rotation option, week in week out at DM, then you need to bring in further cover and you need, if you are ambitious, to do this in a more organised way than bringing someone in on Thursday to play on the Saturday with just one training session along the way. Is that the way a club which is top of the league and has ambitions to be promoted should go about its business? (Interesting btw that one question I did actually ask, you didn't answer! It's almost as if you were too busy knocking down straw men left, right and centre.)

I take the point about the GK situation. Although when you take a decision based on cost cutting and it ends up putting you in a tricky situation, it may be that the cost cutting wasn't wise.