Port Vale 0-1 Plymouth: Port Vale Regret Sale
Credit: Thomas McAtee / shutterstock.com
In a game of little quality, it was the visitors who came out on top in the battle of the bottom two at Vale Park. An important victory on the road for Argyle saw them catapulted into the heady heights of 23rd, and finally within touching distance of safety.
Sometimes you watch teams at the bottom end of the table and wonder how they’ve ended up so low down with the quality they’ve got. This wasn’t one of those times.
If you believe in numbers, newly promoted Port Vale boast the impressive 8th highest xG in the division, a statistic made even more remarkable by the fact they are also comfortably the lowest scorers in the league. This disparity was made readily apparent this weekend with the visit of Plymouth. It was all one-way traffic in favour of the home side for the first half, Vale capitalised on loose passes and worked the ball nicely on the counter on a few occasions, but were unable to make the breakthrough. Had it not been for a pair of well-timed last ditch interventions from defenders Mathias Ross and Alexander Mitchell, we could have been looking at a very different outcome in this match. However, as is the case this season, Darren Moore’s side just couldn’t make their dominance count and entered the break with the score still at 0-0.
Plymouth have been notably awful in their first season back in League One following relegation, but have chosen to buck the trend of hopping on the ever-revolving manager merry-go-round and have stuck with their man Tom Cleverly despite him having them stuck to the bottom of the table prior to this weekend’s action. They’ll be hoping this result can kickstart a trend and their faith will be repaid, after a top-to-bottom fire-sale from the coaching staff through to most of their first team squad in summer, they should still be sat on a healthy mound of gold should they need to splash out on January reinforcements to get them over the dreaded red line.
One of the players they did decide to go out and purchase in the transfer window was former Port Vale striker Lorent Tolaj. The Swiss forward has been a rare bright spark for his side so far, managing seven goals in twelve games in the league already. An impressive goal record for the new man, particularly as the side he’s been playing in have hardly created any chances for him in the first place. Argyle struggled to create anything of note, and his former teammates had his number, so Tolaj was restricted to just one shot across the whole game at his old stomping-ground. If you’re a good enough striker, however, one chance is all you need.
Just 18 seconds after the restart, Argyle winger Matthew Sorinola held the ball up out wide before delivering a stinging low cross into the danger area. The Vale defenders were still adjusting into the second half, allowing Tolaj to ghost between them and stab home the only goal of the game. After the talk of xG earlier, it might refresh you to know that Tolaj chose to forgo the now-traditional “I’m so sorry for scoring” muted celebration against his former side and instead opted for a gleeful knee slide towards the home crowd. We’ve got our game back.
The goal was Plymouth’s first real chance of the game, and even as the game opened up and Port Vale chased an equaliser they still struggled to capitalise on the extra space afforded to them. All things positive from a Green and White perspective seemed to come from Sorinola down the right-hand side, forcing a good save himself before creating a similar chance to the goal that was blocked by a covering defender on this occasion.
Devante Cole tried his best to get Vale back into the game, setting up two chances for his teammates which really should’ve been buried if not for the heroic performance of Plymouth ‘keeper Conor Hazard. When a chance finally fell to Cole himself, he spurned his free header straight into the ground and wide of the post. It would be tempting to look at this Port Vale showing and say it just wasn’t their day, but after consistently under-delivering on the chances they create it’s more than just bad luck. They now find themselves rock bottom of the division and staring down the barrel of an immediate return to League Two, if they don’t sort out their finishing then there’s no hope of dragging themselves out of relegation zone anytime soon.
Plymouth thought they’d cracked it earlier on in the year, after a tricky start they went on a brilliant run and won 5 in 6 in all comps through September. This weekend’s victory was the first win since then, eight games later. They certainly have the quality to get well clear of the drop, but is Cleverly the right man to take them there?