Argyle take positives from Robins cup victory

TOM Cleverley explained how Plymouth Argyle’s 2-0 Vertu Trophy victory over Cheltenham Town at Home Park ticked a lot of the boxes he wanted to see from the match.

- By CHRIS ERRINGTON

Cleverley thought the Pilgrims had been ‘a lot more compact as a team’ than they had been in the 4-0 League One defeat away to table-topping Cardiff City on Saturday, and they had found some form and confidence from the first of their three Southern Section Group B games.

The Argyle head coach was also understandably pleased that striker Lorent Tolaj scored his first two goals for the club since his arrival from Port Vale in a £1.2 million transfer and described the debut of defender Mathias Ross as ‘super assured.

The former Denmark under-21 international started his first game since last November and completed a little over an hour before he was substituted. Cleverley also had words of praise for 18-year-old Joe Hatch, who made just his third senior start for Argyle against Cheltenham, playing in a wide left attacking role, but admitted his side, who had led 2-0 at the interval, ‘didn’t quite have the quality in the final actions’ in the second period.

He also urged striker Bim Pepple to ‘keep believing, ‘keep working’ after the second half substitute for Tolaj had the chance to score his first goal for Argyle with a late penalty but his spot kick was saved.

Cleverley said about the 2-0 win: "A professional performance I thought. Started the game very well, on the front foot.

"Clean sheet really pleased with. I thought the issues that we suffered against Cardiff, and those we have spoke about internally, we put right this evening.

"We were a lot more compact as a team and the icing on the cake unfortunately didn’t come, that would have been three, four, five and really been productive in and around their box, which is the only bit that was missing.