Adam Price once again looks ahead to a Plymouth Argyle evening on which hope is low and expectations are lower. The greens face Burnley as they begin to get cut adrift.

I’m going to let you in on a secret. I actually wrote the majority of this piece before finalising the introduction, and had a left a placeholder along the lines of “insert upbeat intro here.” Reader, I’ve failed. Despite my best efforts, I’m struggling to get myself enthused by any aspect of following Plymouth Argyle at the moment.

In many ways, Saturday afternoon marked a new low in Argyle’s campaign. Sure, there have been worse performances this season, but we’ve seldom seen them at Home Park. At the weekend though, Argyle were completely outplayed by Queens Park Rangers in front of their own supporters. The 1-0 scoreline totally flattered the Pilgrims, and they never looked like getting back into the game. Two crucial home encounters against QPR and Oxford United have passed us by, yielding just a single point.

If that wasn’t bad enough, it’s a side well in the promotion hunt who are next to visit Home Park. Burnley come into the game in third place, just three points away from the Championship’s summit. They’ll be looking to complete a double over Argyle, having won the reverse fixture in October. And whilst football can work in strange ways, this will be a classic away banker for many onlookers.

The reverse fixture

Preview: Burnley vs Plymouth Argyle

1st October 2024: Burnley 1 (Brownhill pen 26’) Plymouth Argyle 0

 

This encounter came straight off the back of Argyle’s 3-1 win over Luton Town, in what was clearly one of their best performances of the season. It raised optimism ahead of a clash with another side relegated from the Premier League in 2023/24. In the end, the game was somewhat of a damp squib. Wayne Rooney’s side weren’t awful on the night, but it never really felt as though they were in a position to seize the initiative.

Part of that may have been down to a surprising Burnley shape. Having preferred a 4-2-3-1 in the lead up to the game, and indeed having used it almost exclusively since, Scott Parker switched to a 4-3-3 for Argyle’s visit. That matched up Rooney’s preferred shape at the time, limiting Argyle’s space, whilst also allowing Josh Brownhill to push further forward alongside Hannibal Mejbri, with Josh Cullen acting as the single pivot.

Burnley, as you’d expect, lined up with some fearsome talent in defence and attack. Goalkeeper James Trafford, alongside centre backs Maxime Esteve and CJ Egan-Riley, provided Parker’s side with a practically impenetrable spine. Meanwhile, left back Lucas Pires and right back Bashir Humphreys, the latter on loan from Chelsea, were trusted to have an influence at both ends of the field.

Lyle Foster led the line for the Clarets in the front three, but I felt the main source of danger for Argyle was likely to come from the flanks. That may well be because this was one of the away day nights where Victor Palsson was shunted out to right back, but Jaidon Anthony and Luca Koleosho have the talent to trouble any Championship defence, and I suspected they’d have a say.

To their credit, Argyle managed to keep their opponents quiet at the start of the game. Koleosho skied a half chance around the quarter-hour mark, but it wasn’t as though we saw wave after wave of pressure on Dan Grimshaw’s goal. Argyle had got themselves into the match, Morgan Whittaker fired a decent effort from range wide, and just for a moment it looks as though the Pilgrims could give another relegated side a bloody nose.

The game’s defining incident came after 26 minutes. Just inside his own box, Darko Gyabi put in a clumsy challenge on Cullen. It felt a soft one at the time, and it possibly was in one sense, but a penalty was absolutely the correct decision. Once Brownhill tucked it away, Argyle were forced to chase the game against the stingiest defence in the Championship.

From there, it would be fair to suggest not a lot happened. On pure feel, Burnley always looked the side more likely to score the next goal, but a few nerves appeared as the clock ran down. Ibrahim Cissoko and Mustapha Bundu had chances, whilst youngster Joe Hatch, introduced just before six minutes of stoppage time, almost broke through. Ultimately though, the Burnley door remained shut.

This wasn’t a game to live long in the memory. Burnley had the edge on xG, posting a figure of 1.38 to Argyle’s 0.56, but 0.79 of that came from Brownhill’s penalty. From open play, both sides appeared fairly toothless, with Burnley edging out Argyle 0.53-0.51. In fact, there were only three shots on target across the entire game, all going Burnley’s way.

The better team won, but this certainly didn’t have the feel of a fatal blow to Plymouth Argyle’s season.

Similarities

Based on the reverse fixture, you’d reasonably believe Burnley are the most boring team in the Championship. For those hoping for some Wednesday night excitement, I regretfully feel this is still the case. Parker’s style may be effective, but it certainly isn’t pleasing on the eye, particularly when you consider the resources available to the 44-year-old.

We can use xG to demonstrate this. When we look at combined xG per game (that is, including xG both for and against), Burnley’s matches see an average of 1.87 total xG. That’s the lowest number in the league, and by quite a significant margin. Remarkably, no other team in the league sees an average total xG lower than 2. The reverse fixture at Turf Moor didn’t go against the grain; Burnley’s fixtures don’t tend to see many chances at either end, and they can be a tough watch at times.

To Burnley’s credit, having such an excellent defence contributes to such numbers. I accept that Parker’s style of play is defensive, and his centre backs will get more protection from elsewhere on the pitch than at most other sides, but it doesn’t make their numbers any less extraordinary. Historically, conceding just nine goals in 27 league games is almost unprecedented in English football. Facing the side with the lowest xG in the Championship, it’d take a brave person to bet against the Clarets keeping another clean sheet.

In attack, I’m still not wholly convinced. There is of course a reverse argument at play, that Burnley’s defensive approach means their forwards don’t get as many chances as they would in other systems. Again though, it doesn’t stop the underlying data being mind-blowing. Burnley’s xG total of 27.38 is only enough to rank them 20h in the Championship this season, an extraordinary statistic for a title-chasing side, and one that demonstrates just how much they’ve relied on their defence to propel them up the table.

With such figures, it’s no surprise that Burnley are still overperforming against their expected points total. You may remember in the preview for the reverse fixture that I took aim at Burnley’s xG numbers, and suggested that their overperformance was unlikely to last. Well, that’s been proved both right and wrong.

Burnley are still posting deficient xG numbers, but they continue to overperform. Winning 53 points from an expected points total of 39.68 means they’re overperforming to a tune of 13.32 points. That’s the largest such overperformance in the league and, given we’re over halfway through the campaign, I guess we can’t rule out that overperformance continuing for the duration.

Anyone who watched the reverse fixture in October probably has a good idea of what to expect. Burnley are going to keep things tight, they’re unlikely to create plenty of chances of their own, and they may be fortunate to end up with their eventual points haul. But that was enough to get the better of Argyle last time and, without wanting to spoil the prediction to come, I’d certainly have them as favourites to secure another victory.

Differences

Given what we saw at Turf Moor was an excellent demonstration of Burnley’s season as a whole, I’ve found this section a little tricky to complete. Nonetheless, there are a few differences to look out for as Argyle prepare to face Burnley again, and just a few signs that Parker may set his side up a little differently, even if the general style may be exactly as expected.

The most obvious of those is the shape. As I mentioned, the 4-3-3 Burnley deployed last time around was a surprise, with a 4-2-3-1 comfortably Parker’s preference before and since that encounter. At the time, it was arguably a smart change, allowing Burnley to counter Rooney’s own 4-3-3 that had worked so well at home. Argyle don’t use that shape too often these days though, and Parker will probably feel he doesn’t have a significant attacking threat to counter. I’d be surprised if his standard 4-2-3-1 wasn’t deployed on Wednesday night.

It’s also possible we’ll see some personnel changes from the reverse fixture. And that shouldn’t really come as a surprise; Burnley have used 34 players in the league this season, more than any other Championship team. The shape may be consistent, but the team selection is anything but, and that has the potential to be amplified by the January transfer window.

The Clarets have already made three signings this winter. Right back Oliver Sonne and striker Ashley Barnes both featured from the bench against Sunderland last time around, with the former giving away a stoppage time penalty. More recently, Parker has brought the experienced Jonjo Shelvey to Turf Moor. He’s eligible for the trip to Home Park, and could become the second player the Greens face in a week, after QPR’s Michael Frey, to be running scared of Harry Potter.

There are further individuals, those who didn’t feature in the reverse fixture, who I feel have a decent chance of playing on Wednesday. Connor Roberts looks to have earned his place in the defensive line, which could see Humphries moved to left back, whilst ex-Stoke City captain Josh Laurent has made plenty of appearances in midfield. It also seems as though Zian Flemming is now preferred over Foster up front, but this could still lead to Foster starting, just from a wider position.

That’s generally it for differences, but I’m going to cheat slightly with one more. At the time of the reverse fixture, it felt apparent that Trafford was amongst the best goalkeepers in the division. I’d now like to distance myself from that view. For me, he simply must now take the crown as the best. A certain Michael Cooper runs him close, but Trafford’s numbers have been nothing short of staggering.

He made headlines on Friday night, saving both late penalties he faced against Sunderland. And that level of shot stopping has been consistent throughout the campaign. As of now, Trafford has conceded nine goals whilst facing shots with a post-shot xG value of 17.51. That gives him a goals prevented figure of 8.51, and a frankly absurd prevented rate of 1.95. Keeping out almost double the amount of goals as the average ‘keeper is a stunning record at this stage of the season.

To be brutally honest, I don’t expect Argyle to have many, if any, chances on Wednesday night. But even if they do, they’d do very well to get the better of Trafford.

Prediction

Pain, I imagine, and a significant dose of it.

I’m not suggesting Burnley are going to demolish Argyle. On form it can’t be ruled out, of course, but it doesn’t appear to be the sort of result that is in Burnley’s nature. Three of their last four league encounters have ended 0-0, with the other a 1-0 victory.

I suspect most of the pain will come from watching Argyle try to break their visitors down. Even the best attacks in the league have struggled with that this season, and another performance like the one we saw against QPR could be akin to watching paint dry. At the other end, Parker’s side have enough quality to break through, I suspect they will, and they’ll probably get a late goal to add some gloss to the scoreline. 2-0 Burnley.