Thread by @ploehmann

#swfc Good things: There should be no doubt for these players that this sort of comatose laurel-resting, "big club going away to a lower league ground" sort of non-performance will see us crucified time and again, especially in this league, which has plenty of quality this year.

By some distance the worst we've been this season and at no point of the game did we have much of a handle on it. It looked like we were only seeing Plymouth's passes and movement 1-2 seconds after they were made and only then did we react to them.

We were so easy to play against: No organised pressure on their player in possession, so Plymouth given time to have player drop deep for the wall pass, swivel and run in behind onto a through ball from the first player.

Extremely simple, but enough to put Hunt, Palmer and Johnson (sometimes literally) on their backsides throughout. You could sense the panic creeping in when Plymouth attacked and we saw no one go out in front and show proper leadership here.

All we got was energy levels dropping even further and movement becoming even rarer. We threw on the cavalry - Shodipo, Corbeanu, Berahino - all talented players busting at the seams to get on the ball and drive towards goal.

But it also killed our approach, carefully built over the previous games this season, of using the movement of the ball to move defences and creating space.

The technical ability of Byers (rightly subbed), Wing (probably the only one who tried to get the team going not just by doing it all himself) and Bannan never go to the fore as Plymouth, again in extremely simple ways, stayed close and went in hard whenever they could, sapping…

…more energy and driving frustration levels of our players, feeling sorry for themselves and too quickly losing trust in each other, further up.

Corbeanu and Shodipo saw us revert to a very easy to defend against schtick back from when we had Kadeem Harris: Give it winger and let him dribble, while everyone else stands flatfooted and looks on as two Plymouth players shut down the move.

We now have a home game against one of the poorer sides in the division in Shrewsbury, who only managed a draw with turmoil-ridden Crewe today. Every chance of getting back on track.

We then travel to Ipswich, who seem to struggle to fit the about 300 Championship attacking playuers bought into the same line-up and actually look like a functioning football team. Again, every chance we take the spoils there too.

The issue isn't the lost points here - and I would say an impressive #pafc won the points more than we lost them. We can make up for them, which was also the case after the Morecambe game.

The issue is *our response*: To adversity, to teams upping their energy levels 10-15% when playing against us (notice all the Plymouth players on the floor cramping towards the end despite having just had two weeks rest from matches), to things not working out as we'd planned…

…and to opponents getting in our faces and being physical. If we can't deal with that at an even rudimentary level, but get pushed into panic stations so easily, any talk of promotion from this supremely talented squad of players is premature.

Yes, they still need to gel and get to know each other. But there were *signs* that they *were* doing so in each game, progressively, after the Charlton opener.

That attacking moves looked preordained, that multiple players moved for one another, that players trusted their team mates to do their job properly.

That's the disappointment after today: The lack of team - so important to Moore and the "family" he wants to build at ours - as soon as we met the tiniest bit of adversity on the pitch.

We saw signs of all this at Rotherham, where we also looked shellshocked for periods, but that was a game we got to grips with (even if the penalty got us out of jail) and we kept our heads a lot cooler than we did here, where our players kept petulantly appeal for free kicks…

…to everyone who cared to listen, and where there were several bookings coming our way simply because of heads being lost to frustration.

I genuinely thought the ghost of Wednesday's past (well, last season mostly) had been busted, but "hello darkness my old friend", I guess :-/

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