Marcus Braddock previews the trip to Home P
This weekend Shrewsbury Town travel to Devon to play bottom placed Plymouth Argyle in League 1. The Pilgrims have had a difficult season managing just one win and two draws. The win was back in early August against Charlton and their first draw was the league game after that away to Southend. Their most recent league draw was a 0-0 at Bury a month ago but they have drawn at home against Chelsea u21 and Exeter on October 3rd in the Football League Trophy.
Top Scorer
Jake Jervis is a 26-year-old Striker with quite a few clubs under his belt already although most were on loan from his first club Birmingham City. When he left City for good, he moved to Elazigspor from the Turkish Super Lig but it was a short stay and he returned to England in January 2014 and signed for Portsmouth who he'd been with on loan a couple of seasons earlier. After 15 league games and four goals, Jervis was on the move again but this time he went north of the border to Ross County, who were managed by current Plymouth manager Derek Adams. When Adams made his 2015 move to Plymouth, Jervis wasn't far behind, signing in the same month for the Pilgrims. So far Jervis has scored 25 times in 94 games (75 starts).
Clean Sheets
One at home and one away.
Goal Distribution
The Pilgrims concede more goals in the second half of games at home with 69% coming in the second half. That amounts to four scored in the final 15 minutes, and four scored in the middle fifteen minutes. There have been no goals for the home team in the first half of any game at Home Park and only 4 in the second half which hints at the problem.
Discipline
With five red cards already this season Plymouth have one of the poorest discipline records in the EFL. Having watched most of them, a couple were quite unfortunate but playing with ten men is a recipe for disaster as we know all too well from the early part of last season.
Managers Comments
Paul Hurst doesn't seem to under-estimate the opposition too much and even though Plymouth are currently bottom, he sees Argyle's aerial threat with so many taller players in their squad.
Derek Adams is a little under the spotlight from his own supporters which is unavoidable at the bottom of the division. This week he's stressed the importance of scoring first, which his team haven't managed to do since beating Charlton in August.
Referee - Mark Heywood from Cheshire. Games this season: 10. Yellow cards: 38. Red cards: 2.
Assistants: Matt Eva and Simon Knapp.
Fourth Official: Christopher Wade.
Squad News
Plymouth: Right-back Oscar Threlkeld will miss out this time after limping off against Fleetwood. New signing Toumani Diagouraga, is fit after coming through a reserve match in midweek.
Shrewsbury: Lenel John Lewis may miss out this weekend because of a hamstring problem.
Prediction
It's very simple this weekend, we need to go to Plymouth and keep the current hard working performances going and if we do then that gives us a chance to get a result. It's also my birthday tomorrow and I'd like to see us continue our good form so I can have a double celebration on Saturday night!
Plymouth Argyle 2-2 Shrewsbury Town
COYB!!!
Marcus