PILGRIMS’ PROGRESS
Rudden strikes to down the Robins
Plymouth earn a valuable 1-0 victory at Cheltenham
RYAN LOWE wants Plymouth to carry on winning in 2020 after they close the calendar year with Stevenage’s visit to Home Park this afternoon.
Argyle moved up to eighth in the table after extending their winning run in the league to two matches with a 1-0 win at Cheltenham on Boxing Day, leaving them well-positioned to make a promotion challenge during the second half of the campaign.
And Lowe wants the victories to keep on coming in the new year after seeing out 2019 with a clash against League Two’s basement club.
He said: “My team is building a winning mentality. We’ll see 2019 out and crack on in 2020.”
Zak Rudden scored the only goal of the game in the 33rd minute in Plymouth’s win at Cheltenham.
Alex Addai was Cheltenham’s main threat, firing over from 20 yards early on and then reaching a low ball from Gavin Reilly six minutes before the break, but his effort was wide of the left-hand post.
Plymouth’s Billy Clarke had clipped the top of the bar in the 14th minute with a long-range volley, while Rudden forced Scott Flinders into a save before the break.
The home side’s best chance for a leveller fell to George Lloyd after good work from Ryan Broom.
Pilgrims manager Lowe was pleased with his team’s battling performance, in front of ove 1,000 travelling fans.
“We’ve seen a different side to an Argyle side that is resolute and determined,” Lowe added.
“We’ve just beaten one of the best teams in the league 1-0. We knew it was going to be a tight game.
“We’re doing well against the top teams, but have to make sure we do it in every game. They had a couple of halfchances, but then so did we.
“I feel we can do better in certain elements of the game, but overall I’m pleased. I won’t be giving too much credit until the end of the season.”
Rudden is on loan from Rangers and Lowe said he was pleased to see the 19-year-old net the decisive goal at the Jonny-Rocks Stadium.
“Zak’s been champing at the bit and scoring goals in training so it was only fair he got his chance, and he took it,” Lowe said.
Robins boss Michael
Duff felt his side were unfortunate not to take anything from the game as they suffered only their third home League Two defeat of the calendar year. He said: “We deserved to win the game, never mind draw. We were excellent for large parts of the game and Plymouth are a big club in this league.
“They have a real way of playing and we nullified that.
“We just need to score at key times in games, which is the one thing we have struggled to do recently. We started really well, then at the start of the second half we had two minutes when the ball was fizzing across the face of goal and we need somebody to land on those.
“Even at the end, we had some good chance as well and it’s not just the centre forwards because there were lots of people missing lots of chances, but to create that many chances against a team like Plymouth shows that we have been good on the day.” Duff has been without his two most experienced front men in Luke Varney and Reuben Reid.
“They are two big players but they are not available so there is no point in moaning about it,” he said. “It’s frustrating as the lads were excellent, ran their socks off and kept going for 94 or 95 minutes, so it’s a tough one to swallow.”
Robins defender Jacob Greaves was frustrated his side couldn’t take advantage of the spells in the game they dominated against the Pilgrims.
“Hopefully in the upcoming weeks if we can get that goal when we’re on top then teams will be thinking to sit back even more and then that’s when we go and punish teams because it’s another team where they’ve been flat out on their feet at the end of the game,” he said.
“We feel like we’ve got a lot left in the tank to go again.”