West Bromwich Albion (A) | Schumacher's Preview

Before the international window enforced a two-week break without a fixture on Steven Schumacher’s Argyle, the Greens lost two games at home in a week.

It meant that they went into the break with 11 points from the same number of games, and at this stage Schumacher and his team took the opportunity to assess what they had seen so far.

On one hand, the observation was straightforward. A ratio of a point per game, with plenty of eye-catching performances perhaps not yielding the results they may have warranted.

For the manager and his background team, there were more complex numbers to be crunched. A look at various datasets revealed some interesting information. Argyle scored well on figures pertaining to attacking matters, which leads Schumacher to think that defensive focus could be the key.

“We've now played 11 games, so that's effectively a quarter of the season,” said Schumacher. “From a data point of view, we'll be able to look at that and ask what areas exactly are we doing well in? What areas do we feel as though we need to focus on? What's the main criteria where we think we can get better as a team?

“We feel as though we've played well, but we don't feel as though we've got the points that we necessarily should have had. If we'd have had two or three more points in the first 11 games, then that might have been okay.

“There's reasons behind that, so that's what we've had to do: speak to the lads, explain the reasons, explain the number we're seeing, and then try to do something about it.

“The numbers are saying that we've had the second most shots blocked in the Championship. We're first in the league on shots on transition – that is speed to goal, which is what we want our team to be: young, energetic, fast on the counter-attack.

“Our chances created have been right up there as a newly promoted team. To be in the top five or six of a lot of the metrics across the league is pleasing.

“But, obviously, we're down the bottom end of the league at the moment with the points that we've got because we haven't felt as a team we've defended well enough. The attacking football we don't want to change, but defensively I think we need to tighten up a little bit. We need to be a bit more aggressive, a bit more streetwise and mix it a bit better.

“We've had a really positive week after what was a disappointing way to end going into the international break. It was good for us to get away, have a look at what's been going on, as we said we would do.

“The beauty of these breaks is that you can reset, figure out what you're doing really well as a team and then also where you can improve. We've had loads of time to prepare and try and get better on the training pitch.

“It takes a lot out of us to play every week in the Championship. You can get a little bit of a breather, let your body recover. The injured lads that we had going into the break, and the lads who got knocks against Swansea have had time to recover.

“It's been good. We're ready to go again into another tough set of fixtures. The next five games are all going to be really hard, so we have to be ready for them.”

That quintet of games begins with a trip to the Hawthorns, to take on West Bromwich Albion. Albion are 11th, with 16 points from their 11 games.

The Baggies have found consistency hard to come by, but they have a squad full of players who have played at tier two or above for much of their career, and are sure to be a tough nut to crack. Former Argyle loan goalkeeper Alex Palmer will be a familiair face in the West Brom goal.

Schumacher said, of Albion: “They are probably they're not in exactly the position they want to be right now, but they're a really strong team, physical. They have got really good individuals and are organised, with loads of Premier League experience in their squad, loads of Championship experience in there.

“They have a top goalkeeper in Alex [Palmer], who we know, so I think they're a really good team and going to their place, we know it's going to be a hard game.

“We've just got to compete, work as hard as we possibly can and get something from the next game.”