Luton Town v Plymouth Argyle 24/10

[Kenneth E End]

A big game tomorrow between two teams with a relatively recent divisional rivalry. In the Division Three season of 2001-02, Joe Kinnear took charge of his first full season at Luton with one ultimate aim - promotion.

The two teams dominated the league that season with Argyle eventually coming out on top, despite Luton winning 13 of their last 14 league games and drawing the other. There were some great players in the two sides - Steve Howard was the division's top scorer and goalkeeper Romain Larrieu was always a menace in between the sticks.

This season, both teams were expected to do well. Plymouth are top of the pile, whilst Luton are still someway adrift with around a third of the season now done. The big news in the run up to this game is the injury to Reuben Reid, who's been ruled of this game. That's a big loss. Luton don't have any new injury concerns, but the balance of the side is the biggest issue.

Should be an exciting game with 8,000+ again in attendance.

 

[BelizeHatter]

I have have almost no hope of even a draw here.Thinking all of our deficiencies will be realised and exploited and we will likely get comfortably beat and could get a tonking even without Reid.

 

[oakroader]

mr still needs to instill some passion
mr still needs to instill some organization
mr still needs to instill some pride
mr still needs to instill some confidence......
or else it will be not in-still but out-still!!!!

 

[Sergei from IT]

A draw please. It would be very helpful if you both dropped a couple of points.

 

[Kenneth E End]

Thinking all of our deficiencies will be realised and exploited and we will likely get comfortably beat and could get a tonking even without Reid.

We're not that bad. Whatever has happened this season, we haven't lost by more than 1 goal yet.

 

[That Fat Centre Half]

Would be nice if we had a bit of width to the team in this one really, the last 2 games i have seen, Orient and York we have been painfully narrow and i gather it was the same at Crawley too. Unfortunately sounds like 2 of the natural wide players in Hall and Green arent exactly flavour of the month with Still right now and with Still seemingly happy with how we are playing im not expecting changes to get that width in the side. Maybe chuck Pelly in there to see if he can give us something different perhaps?

I don't think we will get battered here as we dont tend too, but im certainly not expecting to pick up a result.

 

[PlymouthCasual]

Interesting to read that you are no expecting to get much out of this. We have been very fortunate in our last 3 or 4 games and unsurprisingly our luck ran out away to a decent Oxford side. I would happily take a point and a good performance from this one.

 

[Kenneth E End]

John Still is not usually one for making loads of changes in league games, but I fancy that may happen today. I'd go with this team:

Subs: Justham, Long, O'Brien, Lee, Green, Mackail-Smith (if fit), Ruddock.

 

[oakroader]

745 green army

 

[TheHatter]

I forgot I disliked Plymouth for a little while.

First half was abysmal but after three injury forced subs, we looked much the better team in the second and had our chances to win it. The referee's decision to send Hall off was incredibly harsh, the first wasn't a foul and nor was the second from where I was sitting, mind you he shouldn't have booted it away after it was given as that forces someones hand really. Undeserved and late, scrappy goal (again) but that's happens with predictable regularity at our place this year.

 

[PlymouthCasual]

Get in, Late goals win leagues!

 

[Vanni]

Hard luck Hatters, but Still's position surely needs to be reviewed. Poor form since January, just like ours, though at least we got the 3 points today. Bear in mind you lot were also favs for the play offs last year.

 

[Kenneth E End]

the first wasn't a foul and nor was the second from where I was sitting, mind you he shouldn't have booted it away after it was given as that forces someones hand really.

That's what the second yellow was for.

Fined and not in the 18 on Tuesday night for turning up late and went 'out' last night, it was seen on Twitter.

 

[That Fat Centre Half]

Completely disagree ThHatter Plymouth where much the better team throughout, second half we did have a bit more of the play true but we hardly created anything meaningful and we would have been pretty fortunate to get a draw. Thought Plymouth, in particular first half where excellent, moved the ball very well an there number 10 was very dangerous and Brunt a right nuisance. Organised and nasty when they needed, they will for sure be promote this year I think.

We did threaten a little more after we got the goal but I was never truly convinced we had what it took to get a second.

Halls second booking was for kicking the ball away so he can't have any complaints really, he was getting very frustrated with the linesman on his side who wasn't giving him anything but on that occasion it was a foul, I don't think he would have been booked had he not kicked it away. The ref was very inconsistent but Hall was stupid there.

We were constrained with all of our subs being used to replace injured players. Pretty disappointed for Pelly, gets back does some decent things and picks up an injury, wonder what his state of mind will be.

I'm not as annoyed as I was Tuesday night as we did do some OK things but Plymouth where just better than us to be honest which is disappointing.

 

[Kenneth E End]

Hard luck Hatters, but Still's position surely needs to be reviewed. Poor form since January, just like ours, though at least we got the 3 points today. Bear in mind you lot were also favs for the play offs last year.

I mentioned this on Tuesday - I love John Still, but I'm coming round now to thinking that there needs to be a change at the top. At the moment, we look devoid of ideas and seem to lack any discernable plan. Square pegs in round holes - no wingers started the match; with makeshift central midfielders plugging the wing positions. On Tuesday against Leyton Orient there was a glaring hole on the left hand side which they massively exploited. I don't believe that sacking managers is necessarily the way forward, but with the resources at his disposal, 19 points isn't good enough. Richard Money, Gary Brabin and Mick Harford were sacked for less.

 

[Kenneth E End]

Massively impressed with Plymouth today. They look like they'll be promoted this season. They were solid, organised, confident and composed. 1-1 would've flattered Luton.

 

[AdamStag]

Another failure for lolton though, pressure on still?

They played well at ours but couldn't find a way past our defence. Champions in waiting

 

[Vanni]

To make myself clear, I don't like clubs who sack their manager after a couple of bad results, and this is unfortunately commonplace in football nowadays. What I sure can't stand is when a club sells it's better players, replacer them with vastly inferior ones and then expect the manager to still get good results. That's very unfair in my book.

But this doesn't apply to Luton because everyone knows the playing budget is very decent, and the squad looks great, at least on paper. Therefore it's not unfair to say the manager's not getting the best performances out of his squad.

By the way, sorry for butting in, but I've always taken an interest in Luton, more so after that harsh 30 point deduction and subsequent relegation.

 

[Kenneth E End]

Vanni, I think that's fair enough.

I'm pretty sure this will be John Still's last managerial job before retiring to Cyprus. It will be a massive shame when he finally hangs up his lucky cap, but I fear the time is now.

 

[That Fat Centre Half]

Maybe i am being overly pessimistic because I know we only lost 2-1 to a 95th minute winner but i thought we looked so far away from being at Plymouths level it was unreal. The real disappointment for me is that i actually dont think we played that poorly today. I always felt that Plymouth could, if needed, shift up a few notches, whilst we where playing about as well as we could.

We have brought in, on paper at least, players that should be right up there competing with a team like Plymouth but we looked nothing like it. Plymouth played as a cohesive unit and each player clearly knew exactly what they where supposed to be doing within the system they played. Thats what we looked liked when we have been at our best under Still but at the moment, and in fact for quite some time, look disjointed.

Its obvious that dating back to last season, he doesnt know the system he wants to play. I thought after his comments about learning from the mistakes of last season that this was going to be addressed in the summer with the recruitment of a group of players to play a certain clearly defined way, whether that be the 4231 that saw us have huge success under him in the conference or the 352 that we experimented with at times. Instead we brought in a group of good players rather than build a team. That is Stills failing for me he hasnt built a team but just a collective of, on paper, decent players with no plan.

 

[Chippy]

John Still's post match comments infuriated me, and that's why I feel it's time for him to go. He's losing his marbles in his old age!!