Argyle have had a lot of changes in and around the club players arriving and departing Plymouth. One noticeable change to the squad is former captain Conor Hourihane joining Sky Bet League 1 side Barnsley for a reported fee of £200,000. Central defender Curtis Nelson was named the Irishman’s successor for the season ahead.
Both sets of teams have had very promising pre-season games in the past weeks. Argyle travelled the short distance for their first pre-season fixture against Tavistock a couple of weeks back. With five different scorers on the night Argyle hadn’t dreamt of a better start of their campaign winning 5-1.
There was
one game which everyone was looking forward to and that was Premier League
outfit Swansea City visiting Home Park.
In front of more than 5,000 fans Swansea were too good for the Pilgrims
winning 4-0.
The latest
game came from Weston-Super-Mare which saw the Pilgrims win 2-1 last Saturday
to end the pre-season on a high.
Cambridge
started of their busy schedule brightly winning 3-0 away to Biggleswade Town.
There last pre-season fixture was a 3-0 away win over Sutton United last
Saturday.
The Pilgrims
last visited the Abbey Stadium 15 years ago in 1998 in Nationwide League
Division Three. Included in the Argyle
squad that day was long serving legend Paul Wotton. With the Pilgrims down to 10 men, Mauge the
man sent off Argyle lost 1-0, the only goal coming from John Taylor in the
closing stages of the first half.
Argyle’s
last victory over United was 18 years ago when the Pilgrims won 3-2 at the
Abbey Stadium also in League Division Three in 1996. Chris Billy, Richard
Logan, Ian Baird were the scorers for the Pilgrims.
Cambridge
will play in League 2 for the first time since 2005 when they were relegated
after 35 years in the league. The U’s
managed by Richard Money were promoted after a 9 year absence beating Gateshead
2-1 in the Conference Play-Off Final which was held at Wembley.
John
Sheridan will have a fully fit squad when they travel to Cambridge on
Saturday. Dominic Blizzard and Deane
Smalley have recovered from thigh injuries respectively. Blizzard has not taken part in any of the
pre-season fixtures as he suffered the injury.
Deane
Smalley, who joined the Pilgrims from Oxford in the summer has only taken part
in some of the warm-up matches due to a similar injury to Blizzard.
Available: Luke McCormick, James Bittner,
Kelvin Mellor, Ben Purrington, Curtis Nelson (captain), Peter Hartley, Anthony
O’Connor, Aaron Bentley, Carl McHugh, Paul Wotton, Nathan Thomas, Deane
Smalley, Jason Banton, Ollie Norburn, Lee Cox, Lewis Alessandra, Dominic
Blizzard, River Allen, Tyler Harvey, Reuben Reid, Marvin Morgan, Matt LeCointe
Unavailable: Jamie Richards – on loan to Linfield
FC
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