from the Plymouth Herald
Plymouth Argyle will try to take the fight to third-placed Charlton Athletic at The Valley tonight (8pm).Charlton were relegated from the Premier League last season and are being widely tipped to bounce back into the top flight of English football at the first attempt.
But Argyle manager Ian Holloway has no plans to 'shut up shop' against the south London club.
Instead, Holloway wants wingers Peter Halmosi and Lee Martin, who is on loan from Manchester United, to put Charlton under pressure. The Pilgrims' boss believes it will be a similar style of game to the 1-0 defeat at Premier League club West Ham United in the Carling Cup third round last month. Argyle pushed West Ham close that evening, before conceding a last-gasp equaliser, and Holloway is convinced they can pose problems for Charlton too. After beating Coventry City 1-0 at Home Park on Saturday the Pilgrims are in sixth spot in the Championship.
Holloway said: "I felt quite satisfied and very pleased with what my players showed me at the weekend. "Charlton are a passing it, moving it around type of team, so what do we do? "Do we go and shut up shop, or do we go and try to out-football them? I'm of the opinion that I want to see how our wingers do and see if we can hurt them.
"It will be a very different game to the one at the weekend. I thought we played very well in the first half and I was expecting a resurgence from them (Coventry), but we didn't get that."
Charlton suffered only their second defeat in 11 league games this season when they lost 2-0 at Wolves on Saturday.
That leaves the Addicks seven points behind table-topping Watford, who were also relegated from the Premier League last season.
Holloway said: "We are going to need to be on our game. We have had a couple of great reports about Charlton. Apparently they shouldn't have lost to Wolves. They played some fantastic football. Obviously, they were a Premiership side for quite a while so they will have lots of money and lots of big players in their squad, but what does that matter really?
"It's 11 versus 11, and the subs, that counts tonight. And we have a chance to go above them if we beat them. What more incentive do I need?"
Argyle skipper Barry Hayles suffered a sore ankle in the defeat of Coventry but is set to continue to lead the attack with Sylvan Ebanks-Blake tonight.
Holloway said: "He's okay now and he normally does well away to London clubs."
With no other injury worries, Holloway will stick with the same starting line-up as the one on Saturday. Argyle are unbeaten in their last four Championship matches, which has seen them move up from 13th to sixth position. But Holloway insisted he was taking no notice of the table at the moment.
"A few weeks ago, when we weren't very well positioned, I still felt we were playing well," he said.
"As long as we are performing well and doing things right, and working hard and listening, then I don't think we will have too many surprises. But I do know that at this standard anybody can beat anybody else.
"This is probably the most exciting division to be a manager in, but also the worst, because you are constantly looking over your shoulder. You can't rest on your laurels from the last result because you have got a new challenge coming up in your next opponents."
Meanwhile, goalkeeper Romain Larrieu has returned to Argyle at the end of his one-month loan spell with Yeovil Town.
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Comments
genius that fella !!
Is that not normally the case then ????
How many of our likely starting line up were with us in the Prem last year? ZZ (on loan), Reid (injured for most of it) and Fortune (out on loan)?
I spose it's the "plucky underdog" card they're playing.
So that's pretty much the whole team that started against Wolves apart from Varney, Iwelumo and Samedo
From what I gather Ambrose and Powell are injured and Boughera is sick, so not that many then.