Steven Schumacher salutes ‘brilliant result’ as Plymouth beat Peterborough

Posted Sunday, August 14, 2022 by PA

Plymouth boss Steven Schumacher was full of praise for his side after they bounced back from their 2-0 Carabao Cup defeat to Peterborough to beat them by the same score in League One at Home Park.

On-loan Aston Villa midfielder Finn Azaz opened the scoring after 30 minutes before Ryan Hardie converted a 65th-minute penalty as Argyle eased home.

Schumacher said: “It was a brilliant result and a really good performance. Right from the first whistle we were at it today.

“We spoke on Thursday and Friday about us not starting the game well enough on Wednesday night against these.

“We sort of allowed them a little bit too much time and space on the ball.

“We looked at it, worked on it and felt, if we could put some pressure on them early on, try and get the crowd behind us and play at a good tempo, especially in the heat, that would be hard for Peterborough to cope with – and it was.

“I felt we fully deserved our lead when we got it, although I thought we should have scored earlier, but you can’t be over-critical because overall it was a really good performance.

“We couldn’t change the way we were going to play because we knew it was going to be hot.

“The game plan was spot on and the lads executed it and played really well.

“We caused them some problems and could have probably scored a couple more, that wasn’t to be.

Jack Marriott’s angled strike which was superbly saved by Michael Cooper was as close as Peterborough came in the first half, while substitute Joe Taylor saw his late strike turned on to a post by Cooper.

But Posh boss Grant McCann admitted his side were not at the races.

He said: “There is no point me coming out here and giving any excuses, we were second best from minute one to 94.

“We were nowhere near what we had planned to do. We were nowhere near it. That being said we had a chance to equalise – the Joel Randall chance and Joe Taylor has hit the post and things like that.

“We had a couple of half sniffs, but nothing like the Wednesday night game, for example, where we created a lot of chances.

“We have come to a tough place today, Plymouth will be strong here at home.

“We didn’t give ourselves the best chance to compete with Plymouth because we didn’t do the basics of football right. It’s as simple as that.

“I could stand here and talk to you technically all day, but, at the end of the day, if you don’t compete you lose a game of football and that is what happened today.

“The performance in the second half was all right, nothing to sing home about. Yes, we had a couple of chances. It was a little bit better than the first half, but not much and not enough to win the game.”