Adams delight at moving off the bottom of the table

Posted Wednesday, October 24, 2018 by PA

Plymouth Argyle boss Derek Adams praised his side as they moved off the foot of the table with a comprehensive 3-1 League One home win over Gillingham.

Adams said: “We are a very good team and if they keep playing like that they will get up this league very quickly.”

Freddie Ladapo scored two more first half goals – to add to his two from Saturday – and take his tally to seven for the season.

Ruben Lameiras made it 3-0 in the 73rd minute before a consolation goal for Gillingham from their second half sub Bradley Garmston.

Adams: “I thought you could tell we were at it. We have been able to pick up a very good result.

“Freddie could have scored more tonight, as a team we could have scored more but you have got to be delighted because Freddie has scored two quality goals tonight, and two on Saturday.

“He’s really finishing well. His first goal was outstanding. Over the 90 minutes it was a top performance from us. We had to defend well at times.

“I thought Yann Songo’o and Niall Canavan dealt with that really well. David Fox, Jamie Ness and Antoni Sarcevic were outstanding in midfield.

“We were able to put on Lameiras for Graham Carey and Stuart O’Keefe for Fox and nothing really changed.

“Conor Grant has only played once at full-back before but we worked on him at left back yesterday and he’s comfortable on the ball, he’s good in the air and he gave us a platform to work from tonight.

“I think tonight shows you we have got a very good squad but we have still got experienced players on the injury list, with a lot of first team experience.”

Gills boss Steve Lovell said: “In the first half we were very poor. They scored two good goals, the first one was an excellent finish and the second one we could have dealt with.

“We didn’t get near them – it was as poor a half as we have had this year. We changed things around and had a right good go in the second half but it is too late, (we had) a mountain to climb.

“I gave them a bit of a jolt at half-time and told them to roll their sleeves up, show some pride and get something out of the game. It was too late.

“There are no easy games, we were coming to a big club who haven’t started very well but it only takes a first goal to lift everybody and that is what happened here tonight.

“Ladapo was a handful in the first half and caused us problems. He brings midfielders into play and runners in behind, we didn’t cope with him.

“We didn’t do anything in the first half, which was disappointing because I thought we were starting to get back into the swing of things in the last few games.”