The Opposition View: Luton Town
Sam Down spoke to Lewis from @OakRoadHatter ahead of the Friday night fixture at Home Park.
The last time Friday Night Football was played at Home Park, the scenes were euphoric as Argyle’s win over Leicester was one for the ages. This time, Argyle face an old foe for the first time in many years as Luton Town are the visitors. Whilst the rivalry of the 2001/2 season is long in the past for many, it’s a big game for both sides in a critical phase of the season.
With thanks to Lewis from OakRoadHatter on Twitter/X.
What were your expectations for this season after relegation?
I think everyone's realistic expectations were the playoffs minimum. Coming down from the Premier League and retaining most players that were with us, it seemed silly not to expect that. There was a sneaking suspicion of possibly getting autos IF we recruited correctly, but for me, we didn't do that.
How did your pre season go and what did you make of summer business?
From my perspective, it was quite a poor preseason. I believe out of the five games we played, we won only once, of course, there were mitigating factors - key players being injured still, some only starting to come back into the fold, and other teams being ahead in their schedules. On our podcast, I rated are transfer business as a 7 out of 10. My main reasoning behind this was the lack of losses to the first team, there were some expected departures in Barkley, Lokonga who was on loan, and Osho who was out of contract, but they were the only three I'd say are losses. There were some good signings there as well: Tom Krauss who played 60 games in the Bundesliga and has Germany U21 experience made his first appearance last week, Victor Moses I'm sure is known by everyone, Mark McGuinness who has a lot of Championship experience, and Shandon Baptiste who made 78 appearances for Brentford across both Championship and Premier League.
You started the season quite slowly? Has it been tough replace Ross Barkley/what else would you put that down to?
Ross was always going to be tough to replace, but he isn't the reason for this poor start. We haven't started the same back 3/5 so far this season, we haven't got a settled midfield pairing (albeit this is beginning to change now with Nakamba and Krauss fit), and we've oddly struggled to put the ball in the net - whether you like the expected goals stat or not, we have 8.2 expected goals and have only scored five which backs this up. I think it's a season of transition with quite a few new signings and being a team that's now expected to dominate, rather than the inferior opposition like last year.
Any players we need to look out for ahead of the game?
As I mentioned earlier, we have a lot of players still coming back in from injuries so it's difficult to pinpoint who will start. Despite the poor start, several players could hurt you - the likes of Chong, Adebayo, Doughty, and Morris are the main ones I’d say. A lot of our creativity comes from Chong and Doughty down that left side, and then of course they tee up the likes of Adebayo and Morris. Despite only making their first sub appearance of the season, both Moses and Krauss looked very accomplished - maybe put them in the honourable mentions category.
And any weak areas?
It's an odd one really, because I've seen all our games this season, whether that be on TV or in person and I can't pinpoint an exact weakness. It's mainly down to more individual errors, for example, Doughty lost the ball in a dangerous area, Sheffield Wednesday counter-attacked and scored. Another is Kaminski who decided to be Jackie Chan against Portsmouth and got sent off from the 30th minute, a game which we dominated up to that point. If you score, it will likely come from an individual error rather than a great passage of play.
The last couple of games it seems like performances and wins have both picked up, what’s the reason for that?
Yes, we've won, but it's not been pretty viewing, Edwards has said as much himself in his post-match interviews. I would say we performed better in the games before the past two than we have in the last two, but we walked away pointless from those and gained six here. At the end of the day, if you pick up points, I don't think anyone cares how you win (at least that's my view).
Are the fans still strongly keeping faith in Rob Edwards as the right man going forward?
The pressure has eased after picking up back-to-back victories. Yes, the fans have faith, but understandably there are more frustrations given the expectation both he and the fans have this season, something I think he struggled with so far. I don't know Edwards personally, but he comes across as a perfectionist, and I know the poor performances despite the victories will annoy him. He's generally honest and upfront about issues and our performances as well, which I'm sure as fans you also know that helps.
Finally what’s your prediction for the game?
I'm going for a professional away win, 0-2 Luton. We finally have fit, quality players who can occupy the bench and the starting XI, something I feel like we haven't had (apart from last week) since the start of last season. We haven't had an xG conceded of over 1 in any game this season, apart from Burnley, which even then was only 1.43xG. Despite only having a single clean sheet, we've been very unlucky to concede the number of goals we have and now having two number 6s back in the fold gives us more security in that midfield area.
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