The Pilgrim’s Progress

On paper this FA Cup 3rd round tie only ever had one winner,
what a shame the game has to be played on grass.

Plymouth Argyle have had a terrible time away from Home Park this season with no wins on the road in any competition, their last such win coming at Milton Keynes in their final pre-season friendly.

To throw further water on the Pilgrim’s fire of hope their hosts have the second best home record in the Premier League all season, the Gtech Community Stadium is Brentford’s fortress.

Okay, so Nottingham Forest had finally breached the gates in the last game, as my last blog explores, but surely the rebuild had gone well enough to keep out the managerless team pinned to the bottom of the Championship and had only scored 24 goals in 25 games so far this season?

Apparently not…

It shouldn’t have mattered that we put out a much changed side as it still included heavyweights Mikkel Damsgaard, Kevin Shade and Mathias Jensen not to mention the return from injury of Rico Henry…

Having been out with a knee injury Rico was back on the grass again and the best player on a Brentford team that looked cobbled together from spectators in The Orchard bar.

Every pass in the final third was either overhit or to the feet of someone in Pilgrim green, even the Pilgrims that had made their way all the way to the big smoke from the depths of Devon couldn’t help pointing this out.

It took them just 15 minutes to break out the mocking chants “how s*** must you be, we’re drawing away” being a personal favourite.

The embarrassment emanating through the home stands was palpable at points, even I was susceptible to it uttering the words “we are making them look competent” in my first half voice notes.

Our backline of Rico, Sepp Van Den Berg, Kim Ji-Soo and Mads Roerslev had never played together as a 4 before and at times they were bailed out hard by the pilgrims profligacy and the stellar work of Hakon Valdimarsson behind them to keep the scores level all the way upto Rico’s withdrawal at the 63rd minute mark.

By this point it was abundantly clear that the big guns were needed to turn this one around for the hosts so on came Keane Lewis Potter, Bryan Mbuemo and Yoane Wissa in hopes of propelling us into Round 4.

This failed spectacularly with Plymouth still looking the more likely to score and eventually they did.

Things had gone so far off the boil that I had spent most of the second half praying for a goal to save us all from extra time and penalties, but they do say be careful what you wish for and with 8 minutes to go all the Pilgrims prayers were answered.

Morgan Whittaker was the man to win it for the visitors and in front of incoming manager Miron Muslic too, which can hardly do his chances of being a huge part of their push for survival any harm at all.

I was too distraught at just how good we were making Plymouth look that I didn’t see the goal but as soon as I heard the thunderous noise from the away end I knew the Bees were well and truly smoked.

From the second we went behind the last 8 minutes were just a formality to get to the whistle and rubber stamp the Pilgrims progress.

They have been drawn at home to Liverpool, the biggest team at the best venue they could hope for. I wish the Pilgrims the best of luck for that match and the rest of the season.

As for my beloved Bees, good luck to us tonight against a Manchester City team that returned to form with an 8-0 (eight – nil) demolition of Salford City. Judging from Saturday, we need it.