Good morning, and welcome back to The Argyle Briefing.
Well, that was a frustrating night in Leicester last night. We’ll cover the immediate fallout from the defeat to the Foxes in today’s briefing.
🏆 LEAGUE ONE (TUE 1 SEP 2026)
🔵 Leicester City 2
Alves 45+3
Howell 45+5
🟠 Plymouth Argyle 0
Leicester suffered an early blow when an accidental collision between goalkeeper Jakub Stolarczyk and Ronan Curtis inside the opening minute forced a very early end to the Foxes custodian’s evening.
City showed their attacking quality with former Argyle loanee Bobby De Cordova-Reid twice coming close, but looked vulnerable at the back with Will Evans twice lacking the composure to find a teammate after Argyle pinched the ball in the final third.
And the five minutes of added time for Stolarczyk’s injury proved crucial as the Foxes finally burst into life. Will Alves’ shot took a heavy touch off Alex Mitchell’s leg and flew over Murphy Cooper to give the hosts the lead.
And within two minutes it was two. Sammy Braybrooke took aim and Cooper could only push his low effort to the feet of Harry Howell, who stroked it in from close range.
Argyle improved after the break with substitute Bim Pepple and Alex Hartridge forcing saves out of the hosts’ replacement keeper Alex McCarthy.
Matty Sorinola struck the post from range and Caleb Watts brought a fine stop out of McCarthy late on, but it never really felt like the Pilgrims were going to dig their way out of this one.
👥 Argyle line-up
M Cooper; W Harding, A Mitchell, J Pleguezuelo (B Pepple 61), A Hartridge; T Bakinson, H White; X Amaechi (O Irow HT), B Ibrahim (C Watts 70), R Curtis (M Sorinola HT); W Evans.
Unused subs: J Storer, M Ross, J Edwards.
Yellow cards: Amaechi 38.
Tom Cleverley’s verdict
“It’s an overwhelming feeling of opportunity missed. I think if you can come anywhere and turn the ball over and create turnovers in their box five or six times in the first 40 minutes you expect it to end in goals. We got the press bit right but we unfortunately didn’t get the transition bit right and not even close.
“I say we’ll work on it but we don’t have any time to work on it. That’s the nature of the beast in League One. They’re a group of players that desperately need some training pitch work and we just won’t have that time until next week.
“It’s an opportunity missed, and even then for a large period in the middle of the game we didn’t show anywhere near our own best version and we still could’ve scored three in the last ten minutes. So, massive opportunity missed.”
🆚️ League One results
Bradford 1-2 Cambridge
Bromley 0-5 Leyton Orient
Doncaster 1-1 Notts Co
Huddersfield 3-1 Oxford
Leicester 2-0 Argyle
Peterborough 0-0 Stevenage
Wycombe 1-2 Sheff Wed
The Bigger Picture
Huddersfield are the new League One leaders after Joe Taylor’s fourth and fifth of the campaign helped the Terriers to a 3-1 win over relegated Oxford.
But it was more bad news for new boys Bromley, who slipped to a second five-goal defeat in as many games, with the Ravens going down 5-0 at home to Leyton Orient.
Sheffield Wednesday, who beat Bromley 7-2 at the weekend, were on the winning side again at Wycombe, while Doncaster, who visit Argyle on Saturday, drew at home to Notts County.
📊 League One Table
⚪ 12. Burton — 4 pts (0)
⚪ 13. Oxford — 4 pts (-1)
⚪ 14. Luton — 4 pts (-2)
⚪ 15. Argyle — 4 pts (-2)
⚪ 16. AFC Wimbledon — 4 pts (-2)
⚪ 17. Peterborough — 4 pts (-5)
⚪ 18. Bromley — 4 pts (-7)
🟢 Automatic promotion 🟡 Play-offs 🔴 Relegation
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Matt Friday
Founder, The Argyle Briefing