Butcher's Accrington Preview

Matt Butcher is heading back to an old haunt when Argyle face Accrington Stanley on Tuesday night.

The midfielder joined Argyle in the summer having spent two seasons playing under John Coleman at Accrington, playing 85 times for the club.

His understanding of what Coleman’s side are about gives us an insight into how Stanley, 21st in Sky Bet League One and in need of points to obtain survival, will approach the visit of Argyle, who head north in second and having beaten Forest Green Rovers 2-0 on Saturday.

“I think they've got new changing room since I last went!” said Butcher, thinking about revisiting the Wham Stadium. “It's always nice to go back to see some familiar faces, not just the players, but people from around the club. That'll be nice.

“I think you’d be lying if you didn't say that you always want do well against people that you've previously been with. Hopefully we can do that as a team. They are fighting for their lives, they’re in a difficult position, so our mindset's got to be bang on it because they're the most dangerous when they've got almost nothing to lose. They might have a little bit of a free hit.

“From playing there, there's no fear going into any game, and I think they're going to take the game to us. They’ve based their whole club ethic on hard work. If you get that and you get people wanting to do well for the club, which I think they've got and they've had for the last God knows how many years now, you've always got a chance. They’re always dangerous, I think.

“They're not a team to come and sit off. They want to impose themselves and they want to affect the game. Them fighting for their lives is just going to heighten that. We’ve got to make sure we can stand up to that first and foremost, and then put our own stance on the game after.”

Last season, Argyle accrued 80 points and just failed to reach the League One play-offs. A win at Accrington, in the Greens’ 38th game of the season, would send them to exactly the same tally as last time, with eight games still to play.

The exact number that will be required for automatic promotion is unknown, but Butcher spoke of the importance of momentum at this stage of the season, even though the game at Stanley is the last league game for over two weeks, with a Papa Johns Trophy final coming before Argyle head to Morecambe on Good Friday, 2 April.

Butcher told Argyle TV: “If we can hit that 80-point mark by the start of April then that'll be massive for us going into that last run of games, especially with the cup final coming up. I think we want to go into that week with two wins and really bring that momentum through, keep holding on to that winning in feeling.

“You often see a team that hasn't been in the play-offs all season come through. Momentum is massive in this league. You've seen it year on year. If we can grab onto that as quickly as possible going into these last games, get the ball rolling, it's a lot easier to keep. It's more difficult when you're going from dropping points to winning points.

“It's nice to keep that consistent feeling of winning and ticking them off because it's coming to the end of the season and no matter how the performances are, all that we care about now is getting promoted.

“Even when we've had a result that’s not gone our way, we've responded from that every time. I don't think that's by luck. I think that's from the momentum that we've created. It's a lot easier to snap back into that after a performance that hasn't quite gone our way because it's so fresh that we can remember them good times.

“We’ve just got to hang onto that and hopefully deal with the task in hand.”