At Kenilworth Road Argyle and the Green Army finally forged a bond

Bonds forming and tensions healing – but uncomfortable truths remain

Maybe, just maybe, we have lift-off on the Cleverley era.

It’s now two wins from two and somehow three from four – but something happened at Luton last Saturday that was bigger than three points on the board.

I don’t think I’ve been alone in feeling slightly disconnected from the team this season. It’s hardly surprising with so many new faces and, at times, some truly hopeless football.

But over 100 minutes at Kenilworth Road, this group and the Green Army forged a bond. A display of passion and grit, amid hopeless self-sabotage, made for a modern-day classic of an away day. Players showed their character and quality: Tolaj, Ibrahim, Mitchell, Ross, LAH – and older faces such as Sorinola, Mumba and Galloway, too.

It makes you wonder if this is what we have to go through for Argyle to win away from home. But it’s a step in the right direction. And if we can navigate yet another injury crisis, maybe it’s lift-off for 25/26.

Three four three

Over a month after I wrote that Tom Cleverley should reflect on his team structure and system, he has substantially tweaked both to mastermind a fine win against a highly regarded Stockport team and gain a rare away win at promotion-favourites Luton.

I’d started to have huge doubts about Cleverley as a tactician, even before the Cardiff debacle. While I respect that he needed to give his ideas time to work, the change in system was so obvious, it boggles the mind that it didn’t happen sooner.

The change has yielded two fine Bradley Ibrahim performances in midfield, and after comments about his performances in the first seven games, it perhaps indicates that more of our transfer business should be reassessed in a functioning system before criticism.

Indeed, the run of results has quietened online dissent about the window.

I wrote this in a pre-Stockport draft of this newsletter, and would say that the revised system and ideas addressed many of these issues:

Until now, I’ve seen nothing from his set-up or ideas that enamours me. We’re set up with six defenders and four attackers and ne’er will the two meet. There’s almost no overlapping of full-backs, no forward runners, and no overloads. There seems to be little blueprint on how chances will be created, and one of the only league goals we’ve scored came from Boateng blindly running at a defence of mannequins.

While Luton wasn’t pretty, it was resilient and still created enough good chances to score three goals away from home. The four goals against Stockport might have largely come from set plays, but we earned those from good interlinking wide play that forced corners and throw-ins from dangerous overloads, and good crossing positions.

Regardless of whether these improvements have come simply from the shape or from a change in approach and instruction, it bodes well. Yes, there has been luck – but we’ve been able to carve out dangerous chances.

There’s no denying it, however. The injury situation is bleak with Watts now out seemingly long-term and Szucs also reportedly until the New Year. That means more square pegs in round holes to cover the two 10 positions, which is now just up to Mumba (still better at LWB for my money) and Owen Dale. Tegan Finn will get game time there, and we could see Law McCabe. But just as we seemed to get some stability, it feels like we’re back in trouble.

Fans forum

If anyone doubted how serious the business of club communication is, this year has proved the case. Argyle’s communication with fans has been well-intentioned, but has inadvertently contributed to a toxic atmosphere, not helped by the terrible football served up by Cleverley’s hopeless 4-2-3-1 crab-like passing system.

That exacerbated transfer window frustrations, which, on the evidence of the past few games, may or may not be true.

The “top six budget” brag from pre-season that ignored the impact of player turnover and upheaval, and the supposed £10m of inbound transfer fees led to the “where has the money gone?” rhetoric.

Chest-thumping rhetoric after relegation, information but not detail, as well as inconsistency and contradiction, have meant that it’s taken two fans forums and a chairman’s letter to wrestle back control.

And we got those details in abundance in the most recent meeting. I’m not going to recount the finances here, but to me, the crux of the problem was this.

I don’t believe fans, myself included, realised that our player trading model was designed to cover day-to-day losses. You can call this out in the comments if I’ve been naive, but I felt the club was designed to be sustainable without the random ins and outs of transfers, and that they were somehow ring-fenced from day-to-day business, and all about growing as a club.

That slightly bubble-bursting realisation that the vast majority of our player gains were just there to cover losses sat heavily with me the day after the fans’ forum.

We’ve allowed, through circumstance and naivety, key assets to go for too little.

To get less than £5m for Adam Randell, Michael Cooper, and Ryan Hardie is madness. I feel that any other club in the EFL could have netted £10-£15m from those players alone.

How differently our future would look with that money.

So we must try to do it again. Foulston Park gives us better chances to develop talent in the men’s and women’s game.

And next time, we must do better.