Hello and welcome back to The Argyle Briefing.
Here are my notes from Saturday afternoon.
🏆 LEAGUE ONE (SAT 26 SEP 2026)
🟢 Plymouth Argyle 0
⚪ Burton Albion 1
Armer 70
It’s frustrating, but it’s all OK
As disappointing as yesterday’s result was, it didn’t leave me feeling like there was too much to be concerned about. Given how well the team has played lately — four successive wins in all competitions prior to Saturday — you can expect players to have the odd off day. The problem for us was most of the team had it in the same game.
Burton deserve credit — their plan would have been to nick a goal and then dig in, and that’s how it played out. They would have seen that Oliver Irow has been one of our brightest sparks in recent weeks and they marked him out of the game. They did well to nullify Bim Pepple’s threat, albeit with referee Simon Mather turning a blind eye to the customary manhandling of the Canadian.
What was most odd about the performance was that it was such a big drop-off from recent weeks, and almost out of the blue. It felt flat from the first whistle, both on the pitch and in the stands, and given Argyle had the chance to end the afternoon as League One leaders, it was the opposite atmosphere to what you would have expected.
Nonetheless, I don’t think we should be losing too much sleep after that defeat. Although any home defeat, and one to a team that we beat 7-0 on aggregate last season, is far from ideal, there’s more than enough about this squad to prove at Leyton Orient next weekend that this was a one-off.
💬 Cleverley’s comments
“It’s obviously a really frustrating result. I thought we were flat today, in the first half especially. You never want to waste a half of football, especially here at home. We want to make the most out of every action and every minute and today we let Burton off for a half.
“We were not intense enough in our duels, in our second balls and in our minds. We gave the ball away a little bit too much and that was mirrored by only having three shots in the first half, which is very unlike us.
“The second half was better. We created a lot more and some big chances, we had a bit more urgency to it and I thought the substitutes brought that. When you have games like that, the big learning is you [should] come away with a point at least so that doesn’t stunt momentum too much, [then] it’s not a real hurting feeling in your stomach.
“The goal is disappointing and [so is] the nature of the way it came and the fact that we weren’t at the races today. We weren’t our best version of us, but we should be coming away with a point and that’s disappointing.”
Too many missed chances
It’s perhaps a bit harsh to be critical of a attack that had scored 15 goals in the four preceding games, but one area that needs a bit of work is composure in front of goal. As flat as the performance was yesterday, Argyle had enough chances to win the game and didn’t take them.
Bim Pepple had one big opportunity in each half — a free header in the first and a one-on-one in the second — and both should have hit the back of the net. Xavier Amaechi’s was perhaps the biggest of the lot when he fired over with only Burton keeper Corey Addai to beat, and Will Evans couldn’t keep his header on target in the first half when he had the freedom of the Barn Park penalty box.
There’s no doubting we didn’t do enough to win the game yesterday, but defeat could so easily have been avoided had any of these golden chances gone in, and we’d be talking about a lucky point (or three) rather than a dismal defeat.
🌟 Star performers
The top score of 6.85 — Burton had seven players score higher than that — shows you that no player came out of Saturday’s game particularly well, but here are the top three according to WhoScored.
🥇 Harvey White (6.85)
The 25-year-old is becoming a key component of this Argyle squad. Only Alex Mitchell touched the ball more times than White’s 88 touches, his passing accuracy of 87.7% was second only to Julio Pleguezuelo of those who made more than 10 passes, and he was responsible for two of Argyle’s nine key passes. It wasn’t his finest game, but he did enough to be Argyle’s star man.
🥈 Wes Harding (6.78)
It was one of the skipper’s better games since making his loan signing permanent in the summer. Harding made the most clearances (8), blocked the most shots (2), made the most interceptions (2) and made the joint-most tackles (3) of any player in green.
🥉 Alex Mitchell (6.63)
The centre-back was one the busiest players on the park. He touched the ball 92 times, was responsible for six clearances and made more passes (75) than another Argyle player, with an accuracy of 84%.
Burton’s goal a perfect storm
The winning goal was a bit of a nightmare from an Argyle point of view, and I wonder whether Tom Cleverley may have regrets on how it came about. The Argyle boss had swapped out the left side moments before Jack Armer’s strike secured the points for the Brewers.
Caleb Watts and Joe Edwards came on to replace the left side of Irow and Matty Sorinola, with Harding moving across to left back. Harding and Watts had only a few moments together down the left before Burton began an attack down the very same side, and a few moments after that it was 0-1.
Not only that, but Argyle were also down to ten for that moment with Pleguezuelo on the sidelines after being treated for an injury. It looked as if he was going to make way for Mathias Ross at the same time as Watts and Edwards came on, but Cleverley delayed that particular change until after the goal had been scored.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but had he made that change at the same time as the others, and kept 11 green shirts on the pitch, then maybe that goal is prevented?
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Matt Friday
Founder, The Argyle Briefing