After a truly bonkers 2025, Plymouth Argyle served up one final moment of chaos. In the dying embers of their final game of the year, Argyle scored a goal that may or may not have gone in, which on first glance looked as though it could have been scored by their goalkeeper. In the end, it wasn’t, with Aribusitamunoipirim Pepple (I’m not sorry) credited with their last-gasp equaliser.
That goal, once given, secured Argyle with what I’d argue was a deserved draw against Wycombe Wanderers. Granted, “deserving a point at home to Wycombe” isn’t good enough in the grand scheme of things, particularly with it meaning Tom Cleverley’s men will enter 2026 in the relegation zone. For the sake of our collective sanity, Argyle need to lift themselves out of trouble as soon as possible.
The first opportunity to do so will come on a New Year’s Day visit to Stevenage, the only League One team Argyle are yet to play this season. They were one of the early season surprise packages and, whilst they’ve had a slight downturn recently, they’re still comfortably in play-off contention. Indeed, if they win their two games in hand, they’d find themselves within the top four.
They’re certainly not unbeatable, however; let’s take our customary closer look.
Style of play
Manager Alex Revell has tended to deploy a 4-2-3-1, though not exclusively. In general, his approach will be safety first – that midfield “2” will generally sit deep, trusting the front four to be effective enough in an attacking sense to make up for their cautiousness.
We know this because one of those midfielders is a very familiar name indeed. Jordan Houghton had the chance to stay at Argyle at the end of last season, but opted to move to Stevenage. Whether Argyle tried hard enough to keep him around is certainly up for debate, because he’s been a key part of Revell’s midfield all season. We know he isn’t a prolific goalscorer, but he always acted as a vital component of Argyle’s spine across his two Home Park spells – it’s no different at Stevenage.
As he did at Argyle, Houghton has played a couple of midfield roles. That has occasionally involved being the deepest lying of a midfield three, as he did for Steven Schumacher in the 2023/24 season. However, most of the time he’s lined up in a midfield two, and I suspect that’s what we’ll see on Thursday. Harvey White, Louis Thompson and 17-year-old Ryan Doherty are all in contention to start alongside him.
We may see Thompson instead move to the number 10 role, though he does face competition there from Dan Kemp and Daniel Phillips. Spearheading the attack, it’s hard to look past a start for Jamie Reid. He’s Stevenage’s top scorer in the league this season, and by a significant margin.
Out wide, things are tougher to predict, thanks largely to a significant degree of versatility. Phoenix Patterson, for instance, is comfortable on either the left or the right. In normal circumstances, I suspect he’d play on the left with Chem Campbell on the opposite flank. However, given the volume of games at this time of year, Revell may well deem rotation as a necessity – that’s certainly been the case in recent weeks.
If that remains the case, we could well see another former Argyle man take to the field. As we know, Saxon Earley is more of a left back than a left winger, but he has occasionally been used in an attacking sense in recent weeks. If he doesn’t feature (predictably, there are injury concerns), there is another left-sided option in the form of Beryly Lubala. It demonstrates a surprising degree of depth for a club with a supposedly shoestring budget.
It’s at the back where we finally find a degree of consistency. Goalkeeper Filip Marschall has been ever-present, whilst there have been regular starts lately for right back Luther James-Wallin and captain Carl Piergianni in the middle. Piergianni’s central defensive partner is likely to be one of Charlie Goode and Dan Sweeney (I’ve always preferred…never mind). Meanwhile, if we don’t see Earley on the left, expect Lewis Freestone to line up in a Brendan Galloway-esque defensive left back role.
One key part of Revell’s style is that he has absolutely no problem with his side being out of possession. Stevenage’s average possession is 43.2% this season, ranking 23rd in the league and bettering only Lincoln City (41.4%). Generally, they’re more than happy for their opponents to have the ball in less dangerous areas, before hitting them on the break. Given Argyle have abandoned their own possession preferences recently, this could turn out to be a scrappy game.
That’s particularly true when you consider that Stevenage rank fifth in the league for both fouls per game (12.5) and yellow cards (49). Argyle, who have amassed more yellow cards than anyone, will need to strike a fine balance of keeping their cool whilst matching their hosts physically.
Strengths
The vast majority of Stevenage’s strengths come in defence. Partly due to Revell’s overall mentality, and partly due to some individual quality in the back line, Stevenage have one of the meanest defences in League One.
The headline statistic is obvious: Stevenage have conceded fewer goals this season (17) than any other team in the league. Yes, they’ve not played as many games as some of their contenders to that crown, but on a per game basis Revell’s side concede 0.8 goals per game, which is again a better record than any League One side.
Perhaps even more impressively, Stevenage’s underlying data proves this is no fluke. Their xG against this season currently sits at exactly 22. Yes, this does show their defence is overperforming to the tune of five goals, and we may see a slight regression to the mean in the second half of the season. However, that number is still excellent in its own right; only Bolton Wanderers (18.7) have a lower xG against across the division.
Revell’s men particularly excel when it comes to clearances. They don’t complete many interceptions or tackles, suggesting they’re cautious of overcommitting defensively. When it comes to getting the ball away from their box, however, they’re strong. Stevenage have completed 754 clearances in their 21 league games this season, with their average of 35.9 per game enough to rank in League One’s top seven.
In terms of individuals, credit ought to go to the centre backs. Goode, Sweeney and Piergianni are, somewhat predictably, Stevenage’s top three when it comes to clearances this season. However, I’ll reserve most praise for Goode – he’s completed more clearances than anyone in his club’s ranks, averaging 9.3 per game, and he’s also an aerial colossus. His total of 107 aerial duels won this season, at a success rate of 76.4% is genuinely superb.
In fairness, the whole team appear to be locked in when it comes to defending. They’ve won possession in the final third at an average of four times per game, which is the fourth-highest figure in the league and demonstrates a strong press. Given they don’t complete many interceptions or tackles, we can infer that they are happy to press in the first instance, but rush back to position when the initial press is beaten. Risky? Sure, but nobody can argue with the results so far.
I will just touch on the attack too. Generally, it’s where most of Stevenage’s weaknesses apply, and we’ll of course cover that very shortly. However, it would be wrong of me not to mention Jamie Reid. As mentioned, he’s Stevenage’s top league goalscorer this season with eight – nobody else has more than three – whilst his single assist means he has nine goal contributions overall. Additionally, he leads Stevenage’s ranks for xG, post-shot xG, shots and shots on target.
Argyle seemed to be linked with Reid every window during his Torquay United days. He’ll be keen to start 2026 by showing the Pilgrims what they’re missing.
Weaknesses
I don’t mean to sound harsh, because I honestly do admire the job Revell has done during his second spell at Stevenage. Fighting for promotion to the Championship is clearly beyond even the club’s wildest dreams, and it’s all the more remarkable when you consider he was sacked by the club back in 2021, before being brought back as a coach under the stewardship of S*eve E*ans.
However, I feel I must put it this way to really drill the point home: Stevenage’s underlying attacking data is absolutely atrocious.
Across the campaign, they’ve posted a total xG of 17.3. That’s the lowest in the league, and by a significant margin. To put that into perspective, Rotherham United sit second-bottom of that list on 21.2, almost four whole goals more than Stevenage. It’s also worth noting that Cardiff City and Huddersfield Town, two teams Stevenage are in contention to challenge this season, have both posted an xG figure over double Stevenage’s: 35.9 and 35.8 respectively.
Stevenage’s total of 25 goals this season is below average. It’s far from the worst (Port Vale have only scored 13 times), but the fact it’s even reached those heights is largely due to Reid’s finishing. There’s not much else to suggest they’ll continue overperforming. As well as xG, Stevenage rank 24th for big chances across the season, 23rd for accurate passes per game, and 21st for touches in the opposition box. If a team rooted to the bottom of the league was posting these figures, nobody could say they looked out of place.
That is reflected in the expected points table, where Stevenage currently sit 20th. From a statistical point of view, that’s quite remarkable. Remember, Stevenage have the second-best xG against figure in the league, and that’s usually reflected in such rankings. But their figure in attack is so low, their chance creation so poor, that it can’t propel them to anywhere near their position in the actual league table.
In these circumstances, you’d usually expect teams who get off to a flying start, having considerably outperformed their xG, to start dropping down the table. I think we’re clearly seeing signs that this may well be the case for Revell’s men. Defeat to Cardiff on Monday night means they’re currently on a run of just two wins from 11 league games, and we can make that two from 12 if we include their 1-0 FA Cup defeat at home to League Two Chesterfield.
Of course, it should be noted that it is not impossible for a team to consistently outperform their xG throughout the season. Memorably, Argyle themselves did so on the way to 101 points in 2022/23. There is also the more current example of Aston Villa. Unai Emery’s side sit 15th in the Premier League’s expected points table, but are third in reality, and well placed to qualify for the Champions League next season.
However, those are exceptions to the rule. There are signs the rot has already started at Stevenage, and Argyle must take advantage on Thursday afternoon.
Prediction
I’m not expecting a classic game of football here. Stevenage’s main strengths lie in defence, whilst Argyle (with the exception of the trip to Doncaster) have deployed a “safety first” approach away from home in recent weeks. It’s eminently possible that this game could be decided by a single goal.
That is, of course, if we see a goal at all. With Argyle sharing the spoils for just the second time this season on Monday night, I wouldn’t bet against another run being broken this time with their first goalless draw of the campaign. 0-0.