Argyle 1 Cheltenham 0: Match report

ARGYLE maintained their unbeaten start to the Sky Bet League Two season but were taken to the final moments by stubborn visitors as they claimed a fifth successive victory.

Defender Sonny Bradley popped up in the final minute of three added on at the end of an attritional game played in horrible weather to head home Oscar Threlkeld’s long, looping, delivery to the far post.

Up until then, Arnold Garita, the Pilgrims’ new loan signing from Bristol City, had come as close as anyone to resolving the stalemate when he hit the post during a period of second-half ascendency by the Pilgrims.

In a game of few clear-cut opportunities, Cheltenham also hit the woodwork late in the second half, but it was an afternoon when defences held sway. It was shaping up to be the Pilgrims’ first goal-less Home Park draw during Argyle manager Derek Adams’ tenure, and their first at home since March 2015., until Bradley claimed his first goal of the season.

Adams had returned to the side that had begun the second half of the previous week's away win at Blackpool, when Ben Purrington had replaced the injured Gary Sawyer.

That meant some impressive displays in the midweek 4-1 Checkatrade Trophy win over Newport County at Home Park, by the likes of David Fox, Jordan Slew, Craig Tanner and David Goodwillie, had not been enough to convince the gaffer to tinker with a line-up that went into the game on the back of two wins and two clean sheets.

Where whim had not been persuasive, injury was. Spencer last less than five minutes before giving best to an injured thigh, and Goodwillie was introduced from a bench that also included Garita, the deadline-day signing from Ashton Gate.

Goodwillie was obliged, with his colleagues, to play into a fearsome north-easterly, having been turned round by Robins' captain Danny Parslow who obviously knew bad weather when he saw it.

Aided by the elements, the Robins flew at Argyle, who had to draw on the strength that had see them chalk up three league wins on the bounce, conceding a single goal in the process.

McCormick was, by and large, well protected by a back four in which only Sonny Bradley has started every league and cup game this season: only one save, at the feet of Danny Wright, was especially noteworthy.

Still, the Devonport, from where the appalling weather was driving in, saw little meaningful first-half action as Argyle were obliged to not so much have the backs to the wall, as their faces to the squall.

That nearly changed in time added on to the first 45 minutes, when Graham Carey slung in a free-kick that Yann Sonogo'o nodded into the path of Jake Jervis. It was a difficult chance, to be sure, and Jervis could not quite get his foot around the volley enough to keep it down.