Steven Schumacher hails ’90-minute performance’ from Plymouth

Posted Sunday, February 20, 2022 by PA

Steven Schumacher hailed a perfect away performance after Plymouth strengthened their promotion push with a 2-0 win at relegation-threatened Gillingham.

Jordon Garrick and Luke Jephcott scored second-half goals to make it four wins in a row for the Pilgrims, who sit fifth in the League One table.

After a quiet first half Garrick broke the deadlock with a curling shot before Jephcott sealed the points with a penalty.

“Three points on the road, two goals, a clean sheet, the fans here all had a good day, even though they were soaked,” Schumacher said. “I’m really pleased – and on to the next one we go.

“I think that was a 90-minute performance. We had the majority of the possession, all the shots and they’ve not laid a glove on our goal.

“That was a very good away team performance. It was disciplined and it gives us something to build on for Tuesday [against Cambridge].

“We’ve watched Gillingham’s recent performances and they’ve been tough to beat.

“They made it hard in the first half, limiting us to shots from outside the box. That was frustrating, but we asked the lads at half-time to stick to the plan.

“We wanted somebody to show a bit of quality and unlock the door – thankfully Jordon did just that.

“Gillingham set up to stop us and contain us, which they did for the first half. But once we got the goal the game opened up – we only looked more threatening after that. We had the energy and we killed the game off with the penalty.”

The result marks the first home defeat for new Gillingham manager Neil Harris and he conceded his team were second best.

They remain five points from safety after failing to challenge their opponents and Harris says Plymouth are a blueprint for what he wants his team to become.

“They were better than us, let’s be honest,” he said.

“Today I saw a team in Plymouth who have been 20 months in the making. They’re coherent and organised, but the difference was ultimately what they did with the ball.

“We didn’t build momentum, we didn’t have any continuous play, we only had two corners and we couldn’t get the long throw up and running. We never really threatened today.

“They didn’t cause us any problems in the first half and yet the first thing Aaron Chapman does is pick the ball out of his own net. It was a sucker punch at the start of the second half. We’ve given the ball away cheaply for both their goals today.

“We will get better, but the work we’ve shown on the training pitch this week wasn’t there today. We caused ourselves problems.”