Although Plymouth Argyle are achieving their season objective of staying in the league, as they’re currently occupying 20th place, their away record is diabolical, as they’ve only accumulated two points on the road, highlighting the importance of their home form. The Pilgrims have only lost once at home this season, demonstrating their confidence levels when they have the home crowd behind them. However, the game against Norwich was completely unacceptable, with Plymouth making several errors.
Plymouth Argyle goalkeeper’s woes.
A key ingredient to being a successful away side in the Championship is having a reliable goalkeeper in net. Unfortunately for Daniel Grimshaw, his reliability from a safe perspective was underwhelming, and that was represented numerically. According to FotMob, his goal prevention ratio was -1.57, which is significantly poor at this level. The goalkeeper also had several issues at commanding his box, which allowed Norwich’s aerially dominant players into the game more frequently.
Moreover, Grimshaw’s distribution was inconsistent throughout the encounter, allowing Norwich to win back the ball in the advanced third, due to naive passes being played out from the goalkeeper. This was particularly epitomised during the opening minutes of the games, which set the tone for a long evening. Grimshaw’s weak passing accuracy was also represented numerically, as the keeper had a 41% pass accuracy throughout the ninety minutes, as stated by FotMob. Considering that Rooney recruited Daniel Grimshaw to be an effective mechanism from a distribution aspect, he’ll be irritated by the fact they gave the ball away so cheaply from build-up.
Lack of compactness from Plymouth Argyle.
One explanation for Norwich scoring a huge volume of goals on Tuesday night was Argyle’s lack of compactness in the middle third, with too many vacant gaps amongst Plymouth’s shape. Rooney attempted to set the team up in a 5-4-1 formation out of possession, reducing the total volume of space between the backline and forward line. However, the midfielders and the striker displayed poor discipline out of possession, by occupying weak positions, enabling Norwich to create numerical overloads against Plymouth’s backline – leaving the defenders with zero protection.
Furthermore, the Pilgrims were complacent in possession as they gave the ball away too frequently in dangerous areas. This affected Plymouth regularly, as they took up ambitious and dangerous positions during build-up play, meaning they weren’t prepared to win back the ball in a defensive shape, escalating to Norwich having free shots at goal. As mentioned above, the goalkeeper was one player who was responsible for the poor distribution, but Rooney’s central defenders and deep-lying midfielders failed to conduct the game plan concisely.
The calibre of Plymouth Argyle’s opposition.
Although Plymouth Argyle was extremely poor on the night, Norwich showed fantastic moments of quality in the attacking third, with Borja Sainz stealing the headlines once again. The Spaniard portrayed scintillating confidence in front of goal, finding the bottom corners immaculately. Not only was Sainz efficient in front of goal, but he also used his football intelligence accordingly throughout a range of attacking situations — playing an extra pass or dribbling further forward regularly.
Additionally, Norwich moved the ball with fast intensity throughout the game, causing Plymouth confusion about which players they needed to pick up. Therefore this resulted in constant hesitation from the Pilgrims, which subsequently opened up more space for Norwich to operate within.
Only the Plymouth players can answer whether they were briefed poorly by the coaching staff before the game, but from an external point of view, it looked like a side that was poorly coached, and a side that hasn’t played together frequently.
Plymouth Argyle showing set-piece vulnerability.
If you were to ask any Norwich supporter whether they are a prolific outlet from set-pieces, they would laugh in your faces, as they’ve been ordinary from dead-ball situations throughout the season. However, against Plymouth, they were able to connect to multiple deliveries coming into the box, with Shane Duffy being a huge presence. The Irish defender even managed to get on the scoresheet, as the Pilgrims failed to contend with Duffy’s strength in the penalty area, escalating to the ex-Brighton centre-back connecting to Marcondes’ corner fantastically.
As well as Plymouth getting outpowered from set-pieces, the goalkeeper also struggled to alleviate pressure off the defenders, with the goalkeeper firmly static on his goal line. This subsequently allowed Norwich to dominate the keeper’s penalty box effectively, and create a bigger volume of greater chances.
Plymouth Argyle’s injury troubles.
Despite Wayne Rooney stating in his post-match press conference that he could have ‘selected the U18s tonight’, as per Paddy Davitt (PinkUn), the Pilgrims are missing significant personnel due to injury, including star player Morgan Whittaker. Not only are they missing genuine stardust at the top end of the pitch, they are playing without the experienced heads of Ryan Hardie & Joe Edwards, with the latter being the club captain. Given the disjointment of Argyle during the encounter, his presence would have assisted the team greatly.
Unfortunately for Plymouth, those key players will be unavailable until the middle and later end of December, which is extremely damaging considering they have favourable home games against Oxford United & Swansea City coming up. With the Pilgrims having an awful away record, life isn’t going to get any easier on the road as they play Sheffield United, Bristol City & Coventry City in a month without their experienced players, implying there may be further bruises ahead.
Conclusion
No matter how limited the personnel options amongst the team, Plymouth shouldn’t be losing games of this nature – especially when this happened earlier in the season, against Sheffield Wednesday & Cardiff City. Although there was communication apparent in the backline, the team structure looked broken, with too many gaps of space emerging throughout the pitch.
Plymouth also created their problems, as they were too complacent in the defensive third of the pitch, with poorly executed passes being cut out by the opposition. Furthermore, they lacked genuine physicality to escape those difficult situations, with Norwich showing superior combativeness to win their duels and play the ball to their advanced players regularly.
Rooney will be under pressure after that devastating result, but the responsibility must lie with the players, as these heavy defeats have started to become a trend on the road, which puts added pressure on their home performances.