Stoke City (H) | Schumacher's Preview

When Coventry City beat Argyle on Tuesday night, the Sky Blues jumped above the Greens in the Sky Bet Championship table.

Not only that, Coventry elevated themselves to 15th in the table, with Argyle now in 20th, such is the tightness of the middle section of the division.

Take six points from Argyle’s total and they would drop to be level on points with the team two places below them, Queens Park Rangers. Add six to the Greens’ tally, as they would leap eight spots, to 12th.

Another team in that section of the table is Stoke City, who lie 17th, three places and two points above the Pilgrims. An Argyle win on Saturday, and they go above Alex Neil’s Potters, and depending on other results, could do as Coventry did, a climb a metaphorical ladder, while others slide down snakes.

“I remember it was very similar last year,” said Argyle boss Steven Schumacher. “If you put back-to-back wins together, you can go from being in the bottom half - maybe 16th, 17th - to just outside the top six. It was so close and so competitive, and all the games are like that.

“You only have to look at Stoke’s form. They went five unbeaten, with three good wins, two draws, and now they’ve lost two. It's unpredictable. Every team has players that can hurt you. Every team have got the ability, and capability, of putting runs together. But also, if they're not quite at it, and they have a little bit of bad luck or whatever, can go two or three games without a win.

“So, it's important that you stay calm, no matter what happens. If you win a game, brilliant. If you don't win a game, then it's not to be. You can't be too down. You've just got to focus on the next one because we can all see it is so tight and one result can change a lot.”

As Schumacher alluded to, Stoke have found consistency hard to come by. After three wins in a row, against top ten teams, they had two goalless draws followed by a 3-0 home defeat to Blackburn Rovers followed by a 4-2 reverse at QPR.

“They come in off the back of two bad results, so I think they'll be desperate to come here and put that right,” Schumacher said. “It's a squad that's had a lot of turnover in players. I think I counted in [Analyst] Sam's booklet that he gave me the other day, they had 19 players in over the summer and 13 players out. That's a huge turnaround. Maybe that's the reason why they are where they are in the league.

“It's obviously a big change, but I look throughout their squad and the names that he brought in, it’s full of quality. It's full of people who’ve got Premier League experience. It's got loads of lads with a lot of Championship experience and there's a few players who were a little bit of an unknown as well.

“It's Stoke City, who not so long ago were a Premier League team, so we have to give them full respect, but impose ourselves where we can.”

Last Saturday, Argyle put in a gutsy performance to beat Sunderland 2-0 at Home Park, followed by a 1-0 defeat at Coventry, in which the Sky Blues’ goal looked to have been out of play before being turned home.

Schumacher would naturally like a repeat of the former, but takes some inspiration from aspects of the performance at Coventry, too.

Pleasingly, Argyle could well be bolstered by a couple of players who have recently been injury absentees.

“We need it a similar sort of performance as we got against Sunderland,” he said. “We were very clinical and we showed some moments of quality with the ball against Sunderland.

“On Tuesday night against Coventry, that's what we lacked. Defensively I thought we were okay. We didn't give up a huge amount of chances against Coventry, which was pleasing because they are of the best attacking teams in the division. Defensively we were solid enough, we just didn't hurt them with the ball enough.

“We have to make sure that we try and cause Stoke a few more problems. To do that, we just need to look after the ball better, and when we get into areas on the pitch in the final third, connect with our passes and our crosses.

“If we can put that right. Like we have done many times here at Holme Park, then I think we'll be okay.

“The squad's looking good. We are going to have Ryan [Hardie] back; hopefully he'll be back in the squad, if he gets through Friday’s training session, which I'm sure he will. Mickel Miller looks like he could be available as well, so that’s two more players to boost the ranks, which is important.

“We're going to need everybody in the squad at the moment because we're running into a really tough period and we’re going to have to make sure everybody is as fresh as possible.”