The Pilgrims’ boss used the latest international break to assess the good and the not so good from his team over the first quarter of the Championship campaign
When they tighten up defensively, Steven Schumacher thinks Plymouth Argyle can be ‘a decent team’ in the Championship.
The manager of the Pilgrims has been encouraged by his team’s play in the first 11 games of the season, especially the quantity of chances they have generated and their attacking style, but stopping goals at the other end of the field has grown to be a worry.
Argyle return to Championship action after the second Schumacher and his staff have used the period since the 3-1 defeat by Swansea City at Home Park on October 7 to assess Argyle’s first quarter of 2023/24 and then looked to put into practice certain improvements the team can make.wo-week international break of the season when they take on 11th-placed West Bromwich Albion at The Hawthorns tomorrow.
Argyle had a good start to the season picking up seven points from five matches but they have lost four of their last six and have dropped to 18th position as a result.
Schumacher said: “A rest is always good, especially in the Championship where the games are so intense. For us it was a good opportunity to analyse the first quarter of the season and how we feel as though we have done, both positively and negatively where we can get better.
“It gave us a bit of breathing room, gave the players a bit of time to switch off, and we have a good week in training and worked on areas that we think we needed to. So for me, it was a good thing and the next one that comes along will be the same.”
On the conclusions that he had drawn from the first quarter of the season, Schumacher said: “A lot of good things. Some really pleasing things from a newly-promoted team to be playing as well as we have played.
“Performances have been really good. We have created loads of chances. Our attacking metrics are really high so from that point of view we have been excellent.
“Now we are at the bottom end of the division because defensively we probably haven’t been as solid as we would have liked. There is a few reasons behind that, which we have spoken about with the players.
“We all came together and said ‘Okay, we think we can do something about these areas’. If we do get the defensive side of it better and we continue to play as well as we have done going forward then we will be a decent team.”
West Brom, under their Spanish head coach Carlos Corberan, had been unbeaten in five games before losing their last match before the international break, 3-1 away to West Midlands rivals Birmingham City on October 6.
Goalkeeper Alex Palmer, who had a season-long loan to Argyle when they won promotion from League Two in the Covid-shortened 2019/20 season, has been an ever present for Albion in the Championship this term.
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