Butcher's Charlton Reaction

For the fourth time this season, Argyle bounced back in the game following a defeat by claiming three points.

A 2-0 win over Charlton Athletic at Home Park directly followed last Saturday’s 5-2 reverse at Peterborough United, with goals from Ryan Hardie and Niall Ennis at either ends of the second half gaining three valuable points for the Pilgrims.

The loss at the Posh was only the fifth defeat in Sky Bet League One for Argyle, and they have showed why they continue to fill one of the two automatic promotion spots by making it 13 points from a possible 15 in games immediately following their rare losses.

“I think that's been a strength of our season,” said midfielder Matt Bucther, who had an excellent game in the heart of Argyle’s midfield. “Every time we've had a bad result or a bad performance, we've put it right the next week. I think that's credit to the group.

“The other games we've lost, we’ve found a massive response. We were going back to that and going back to what we good at. We’ve always scored goals at home, bar the kind of last couple, so it's just remembering what we'd done for the majority of the season.

“Whoever plays has been brilliant when they’ve come in. Brendan [Galloway] today, for example, was excellent, after a long period of not playing. That performance and result was massive.”

Argyle were well on top in a goalless first half, but could have had reason to be aggrieved when Ryan Hardie had a goalbound shot blocked by Michael Hector, potentially with the defender’s arm, seconds before half-time.

To Hardie’s credit, his response was to harry defender Lucas Ness directly from the second-half kick-off, win the ball back, and score nine seconds after the restart.

“We talked at half-time about starting quickly,” said Butcher. “I don’t think any of us expected to start that quickly! Ryan's done great, especially after [what happened just before] at half time. It can always be tough as a striker when you get a chance like that and get one taken away from you, to show that response and put himself in that position again and take the chance. I thought it was an excellent finish.

“He did great all game. He got onto so many throughballs, made some really clever runs, and obviously took his chance at the end.

“We are going to create, and we've done it all season here. We've scored loads of goals here. If we can take the chances that we do create, especially early on, then it puts us in such a better state for the rest of the game.

“It opens up the game massively. After the first goal, they had to come and get after us a bit and I think that suited us more. We got more and more joy as it went on.”

Argyle are back in action on Tuesday against Derby County, before a trip to Barnsley the following Saturday. Butcher views the first three points of a huge week as a platform to achieve even more.

He said: “We’ve got three games this week. That was a good start, and we can take momentum into the week.”