Plymouth Argyle v Exeter City

[Colorado Gull]

I didn't make the trek up north to York last night, but I did take the short journey (actually, it took longer than it should have! A ridiculous amount of traffic for a mile trying to turn off to get the ground) south to watch the Devon Derby.

Argyle, to put it bluntly, were atrocious in the second half! I honestly thought I was watching Torquay United (which is ironic because Exeter's away kit is yellow and blue). Argyle couldn't string two passes together, constantly going backwards. In the first half it was all a bit scrappy, but it was a clear penalty given away by Exeter and Reid put it away nicely. The first 10 minutes of the second half, Argyle should have buried City, it was clear that they were there for the taking. But, Argyle sat back, invited pressure and Exeter played some nice football in the second half and thoroughly deserved the victory. No way are City going down.

Also, I haven't seen that amount of police at a football game. Helicopters, horses, police, riot police, police dogs you name it, the whole of Devon and Cornwall police were at home park last night.

[PlainmoorRoar]

Can understand the police presence, recent history demands it!

[Pea]

I went too. First half was pretty effective from Argyle. They played some nice enough football but didn't make enough of the chances they had.

Second half was all Exeter and that was due to nothing but Argyle's incompetence. They weren't horrifically poor, and did manage to make a couple of chances which would have killed the game, but they did suffer a vast drop in performance.

The Exeter goals were exactly the sort of thing that we don't get. One horrendous deflection from a shot that was probably going wide to start with which completely wrong footed Cole and nestled in the top corner. The winner was a nice enough move but nothing overly special. A low cross to a bloke in the middle to tap into an empty net. Had that been us, the deflected effort would have hit the bar and the late ball into the box would have been blocked by the bloody goalkeeper.

What really disappointed me was the lack of any meaningful atmosphere. The Lyndhurst stand made an effort for about 5 minutes, but didn't bother trying too hard. The Exeter fans sang a couple of isolated songs, but there was no endless wall of noise. I reckon 1000 of us at Pompey made more noise than 13500 Devon fans last night. Very strange.