Steven Schumacher: Plymouth can look forward to Chelsea tie after Doncaster win

Posted Sunday, January 30, 2022 by PA

Plymouth boss Steven Schumacher will allow his players to get excited about the prospect of facing European champions Chelsea at the weekend after coming from behind to beat Doncaster 3-1.

Argyle had fallen a goal down when Branden Horton put bottom side Doncaster in front but roared back with goals from Luke Jephcott, Joe Edwards and Jordon Garrick.

Schumacher said his players would have faced several days of criticism from him for failing to secure their first win since Boxing Day, which would have put a downer on their preparations for the trip to Stamford Bridge in the FA Cup.

“I’m pleased we got the win because, otherwise, it would have been harder for the players to look forward to the game as I’d have been banging on about not getting three points from this one but, now, we can just focus on putting in as good a performance as possible against the European champions,” he said.

Plymouth had looked on course for victory in their previous game at Fleetwood in midweek but let slip a 3-1 lead with two minutes to go to draw 3-3.

And Schumacher said more dropped points would have been unacceptable.

He said: “It was a great win, because I felt we threw away the chance of three points on Tuesday night when we also went 3-1 up at Fleetwood, so we couldn’t afford to drop more points and there were plenty of chances for both teams in the first half.

“It could have been 5-5 at half-time and that’s not nice for any manager.”

Doncaster boss Gary McSheffrey was left to bemoan missed chances in the first half as Rovers saw the game slip away from them, with the defeat keeping them bottom of League One and 10 points from safety.

He said: “I thought we started the game really well. We were on the front foot, pressing really high up and winning the ball back in their half. We created some real sitters and we’ve got to put them away.

“We should have gone in at half-time winning the game. It’s another learning curve for the players – when you’re on top like that and creating chances as we did, you’ve got to put two or three ahead early doors.

“We got ahead and we just dropped a little bit. I thought we let them play forward too much and we weren’t stopping the forward pass.

“I’m disappointed with how we went from being so good in the first 20 minutes to then having a bit of a blip for 15 minutes. Then we finished the half well and should have scored another two or three comfortably.

“It’s a really frustrating one. At half-time, I thought with what we’d created that we’d go again.”