Joe Nicholson is joined by Chris Errington from Plymouth Live to preview Sunderland's Championship match against Plymouth Argyle
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00 [no audio]
00:15 [music]
00:44 [no audio]
00:47 Hello and welcome to the RAW podcast brought to you by the Sunderland Echo.
00:52 We're back for another preview podcast and today we're going to be looking ahead to
00:57 Sunderland's Championship match against Plymouth Argyle at Home Park this Saturday.
01:02 So to preview the game, joining myself, Joe Nicholson, we are joined by Chris Errington
01:08 from Plymouth Live. Chris, Plymouth back in the Championship after winning League One
01:14 last season with 101 points. So how have they done so far back in the second tier?
01:20 First of all, good to be able to join you today, Joe, and talk to you about the game
01:24 against Argyle. I know it's going to be a long trip for you guys to come down to Home
01:29 Park, but the stadium has been well developed over recent years and hopefully that you guys,
01:35 as well as all the fans that will be travelling down, I know there'll be 1,600 Sunderland
01:40 fans down at Home Park, will have a safe journey and a good day out down in the far
01:44 southwest. How have Argyle got on this season? I think they've done pretty well. I don't
01:50 think their league position reflects, I feel, how they've played. I think they've been
01:56 better valued for the 16 points than they've got from 16 games. They've won four, all
02:02 of those at Home Park. That was one of the keys to their League One title success, their
02:07 superb form at Home Park last season. They won 20 out of the 23 home league games and
02:13 that clearly was very important to them winning the league. They've won four at home this
02:18 season. They've scored a lot of goals at Home Park as well. I think it's five of their
02:23 eight home league games this season they've scored three goals or more. They've scored
02:27 three against Huddersfield, three against Blackburn, three against Sheffield Wednesday,
02:32 six against Norwich. Goals have not been an issue for them. They've done well. They're
02:39 more than holding their own. They just need to tighten up a little bit at the back. A
02:44 few too many silly errors. The last game before the break against Leeds United was a great
02:50 example of that where Leeds were clearly the better team, but the two goals they scored
02:54 in a 2-1 win over Argyle were both caused by Argyle mistakes deep inside their own half.
03:00 On balance, I think they're doing okay. They just need to work on a few little areas to
03:06 make sure they start picking up a few more points and give themselves some breathing
03:10 space over the bottom positions in the table.
03:13 You mentioned the goals they've scored there. Just looking at the league table, Plymouth
03:18 are 19th but they've scored 27 goals, which is the same number as sides like Sunderland,
03:23 Southampton, Leeds, all teams in the top six. It looks like they've taken quite an attacking
03:29 approach since promotion. How have they approached coming back into the championship?
03:35 I think there was some thought that maybe coming up into the championship Argyle might
03:39 try and be a little bit more defensive-minded. They do play on the break a little bit, particularly
03:46 away from home. But they've got some very good attacking players in their side.
03:50 Morgan Whittaker, Barley Mumba, Fina Zaz, Ryan Hardy, who's out injured at the moment,
03:55 Luke Cundall. People like that have all chipped in with good numbers of goals. Morgan Whittaker
04:01 in particular is the key man for Argyle at the moment and definitely proved himself at
04:07 championship level with Argyle.
04:10 They've scored plenty of goals. They've generally played a 4-3-3 formation. They have varied
04:16 it a little bit but they've generally gone 4-3-3. They take the game to teams where they
04:22 can. It was interesting talking to Stephen Schumacher at his press conference on Thursday,
04:26 Joe, where we were talking about the game against Sunderland. He thinks there's quite
04:30 a lot of similarities between the two teams in the respect of, one, both of the very young
04:35 sides. If you look at the players on each line-up, there's a lot of youth. There's not
04:41 masses of experienced players. He also thinks the playing styles are quite similar. I think
04:46 he thinks there's going to be goals in this game. Argyle's track record at Home Park this
04:51 season would suggest that as well.
04:54 You mentioned Barley Mumba. They're a player that Sunderland fans will know well, who came
04:59 through the ranks at Sunderland but they sold him really before he did have a few games
05:04 in the first team but wasn't playing regularly. He went to Norwich, then he had the loan spell
05:09 at Plymouth and then they signed him permanently in the summer. How has he done? I was just
05:13 looking at where he's been playing because at Sunderland mostly he was a centre midfielder.
05:17 It looks like he's moved more out to the wing at Plymouth.
05:20 Absolutely. He's had quite an interesting journey, Joe. I think the best way I can tell
05:26 you what he's like down at Argyle was when he joined Argyle from Norwich in the summer.
05:31 He was the club's first ever million pound signing. Now, for bigger clubs and clubs with
05:36 more resources, a million pound signing these days isn't that big a deal, I suppose. But
05:41 for Plymouth Argyle, that was a big statement of one, their ambition coming up into the
05:46 Championship but two, also showed you how much they rated him from his loan spell with
05:51 Argyle last year. Last term he played quite often as a wing-back. They would play with
05:56 three central defenders and then two wing-backs and Barley was either left or right back,
06:01 a left wing-back. So, this season when they've gone to the 4-3-3 formation that I talked
06:06 about earlier, he's normally been used wide on the left as one of three up front. Seems
06:13 quite a big change in position, doesn't it? But I think Barley's strengths are his speed,
06:19 his directness, taking people on and perhaps defensively as a wing-back or even as a full-back,
06:27 that isn't the strength of his game, the defensive side. So, I think playing him up on the left,
06:33 lots of pace, directness, crosses into the box. He's had a couple of goals, a couple
06:37 of assists. Yeah, he's a big fan favourite down at Home Park. I think all fans, regardless
06:44 of your teams, like to see players that get you off your seats. A bit of excitement, a
06:50 bit of flair and yeah, he's done really well. I still can't get my head around the fact
06:57 that at Norwich they just seemed to purely regard him as a right back and I was convinced
07:03 after what he did at Argyle last season, he'd go back to Norwich and get in their team.
07:08 But they just regarded him as a right back and when he didn't fit in a right back, they
07:15 were ready to let him go to Argyle and I think Argyle have got a really good young player
07:21 on their hands.
07:22 Just on a few of the other attacking players, some of whom you mentioned, just looking at
07:28 Plymouth's last two games, they had a bit of a lack of strikers, shall we say, with
07:32 injuries. Ryan Harding was out injured and so was Mustafa Bundu. You spoke to Stephen
07:37 Schumacher on Thursday, so what's the latest with injuries and how are those two doing
07:43 ahead of this undernourishment game?
07:45 Yeah, when they played Leeds the last game before the international break, Joe, Ryan
07:49 Harding and Mustafa Bundu were both out. A young striker they've got called Ben Wayne,
07:55 who's a New Zealand international but is still quite raw, he opted not to start him and so
08:00 he played with Luke Cundall, who's really a midfielder, almost in one of these false
08:04 number nine positions in the centre of the three up front, as it were. Ben Wayne came
08:11 off the bench at Leeds and scored his first championship goal, so that was a good little
08:15 boost for him. He's been away with New Zealand for the last couple of weeks. They've had
08:20 games against Greece and the Republic of Ireland. He was back training with them yesterday.
08:24 I would expect after him scoring against Leeds that he will start as a central striker against
08:30 Sunderland tomorrow. Mustafa Bundu is back training and is available for selection, but
08:36 having been out for four weeks, it would be a big call to throw him straight back into
08:40 the starting line-up, having had a hamstring injury. So, I think he would be on the bench.
08:45 Ryan Hardy has been a great servant for Argyle the last few years. He played against Sunderland
08:51 in League One a few years back, again had a hamstring injury. He's close, but not close
08:58 enough to be involved this weekend. They're at home to Stoke next Saturday. Maybe that's
09:05 a more realistic target for him. I think Ben Wayne will be the central striker, Mustafa
09:10 Bundu on the bench as an option to come off and in play the last half an hour or whatever,
09:16 but no Ryan Hardy.
09:18 Definitely, that will be a blow for Plymouth. He's scored six goals this season already.
09:23 Ryan Hardy, as you mentioned, he's been a big player for Plymouth over the last few
09:26 years, but you mentioned a few of the players there who will be key. Morgan Whitaker, you
09:30 mentioned. So, just how important is he to this Plymouth side and who are the other players
09:35 that Sunderland fans should be watching out for?
09:38 I might be slightly biased, Joe. I try not to be, but I think Morgan Whitaker is one
09:43 of the best players in the Championship I've seen. I know he might not have the name of
09:48 some people and I know that his time at Swansea didn't work out as well as he would have liked
09:53 or Swansea would have liked. He's got seven goals for Argyle, three assists. So, that's
09:59 ten gold contributions for a team that's come up into the Championship from League One.
10:04 Twenty-two, he's only going to get better. A bit like Marley Mumber at Norwich, when
10:11 you see Morgan Whitaker play for Argyle, it is hard to believe that he didn't really make
10:15 it at Swansea. I do wonder if that's one of the reasons for that. Stephen Schumacher,
10:22 a very bright, tactically astute young manager, seems to be able to get the best out of people
10:29 like Whitaker, Mumber, Finezaz, who's a player they've got on loan from Aston Villa.
10:34 His sort of attacking style of play seems to bring the best out of these players.
10:39 Morgan Whitaker generally is on the right of the three up front. I'm not telling any
10:45 secrets because everyone at Sunderland will be well aware of this, but if Morgan Whitaker
10:48 can get the ball on the right, cut inside onto his left foot, find a bit of space, he'll
10:53 be shooting from anywhere from 25 yards in. That's no big secret because that's where
10:58 a lot of his goals come from. But for a player that he signed again, another million pounds
11:05 signing in the summer for them, to come in and get seven goals and three assists in the
11:10 first 16 games of the season, I've got to be really pleased with a player that got on
11:15 their hands with him.
11:17 You mentioned Steven Schumacher, the manager, and his ability to get the best out of some
11:22 of the younger players in the squad. He's been there now since December 2021 when he
11:27 took over from Ryan Lowe when he went to Preston. Schumacher then went on and got Plymouth
11:32 promoted. I'm assuming he's regarded quite highly with the Plymouth fans.
11:37 Absolutely, yeah. And the bizarre thing, Joe, is I think he's now the joint longest-serving
11:43 Championship manager with Ryan Lowe because they swapped jobs on the same day. Only Mark
11:49 Robbins, I think, is ahead of him. He's been in the job less than two years and yet he's
11:55 joint second longest-serving.
11:56 I think Tony Mowbray is about eighth or ninth, he's been at Sunderland about a year.
12:00 It's bonkers, isn't it? Who'd be a manager?
12:04 I wouldn't say it was a brave appointment, but it was in lots of ways. To go with the
12:11 assistant manager when Ryan Lowe left, he'd never been a manager in his own right. To
12:18 lose Ryan Lowe when they did was a big blow because Argyle were on the up. It felt like
12:22 the club were on the up. But he just slotted into the role seamlessly. You would have almost
12:28 hardly known there was a change. They were pretty unlucky not to make the playoffs in
12:34 that first season. They played Sunderland at Home Park on Easter Monday, I think it
12:39 was, quite late on that season. They just missed out on the playoffs that season, even
12:44 though they got 80 points. To miss out on the playoffs with 80 points was a tough one
12:49 to take. Maybe people thought that was Argyle's chance to get promoted. But to come back the
12:56 following season with 101 points, as you said, Joe, 30 wins, 20 of those at Home Park, playing
13:04 some really attractive football as well. He did a brilliant job. Again, it's a big step
13:10 up for a club like Argyle, one of the few clubs in the Championship that have never
13:14 played in top flight football in their history. It's a big step for them. Like I say, 16 points
13:21 from 16 games, they'd like to have a few more points. Of course they would. But I think
13:25 looking at the whole body of work, they've played well. There's just one game, they lost
13:29 4-1 up Bristol City on a Tuesday night in September. That's the one game where they've
13:35 played poorly and haven't deserved anything out of it. I think in all the other games,
13:39 even the ones that they've lost, they've been in the games, they've been competitive.
13:45 Even up at Leeds last time out, Leeds were much the better side in the first half. But
13:50 Argyle came back into it in the second half and they lost 2-1, but there was 37,000 Leeds
13:56 fans whistling loudly for the final whistle in the closing stages as Argyle tried to nick
14:01 an equaliser. They've been very competitive and I think Steven Schumacher deserves a lot
14:07 of credit for what he's done at Argyle over the past couple of years.
14:10 What would you say the aim is for Plymouth this season? What do supporters think is a
14:17 realistic target for their first season back in the Championship?
14:20 During the international break, Joe, the club announced this five-year plan, mission,
14:26 what they want to do in the next five years. The aim for 2028, and it's quite specific,
14:33 is to be a top-six Championship club with Premier League aspirations. That's it in a
14:39 summary of what they want to do. We asked Steven Schumacher about what he thought of
14:44 the five-year plan and he's all in favour of having plans, but he said the priority
14:48 is staying up this season. That is the first part of the plan, to stay up and then build
14:54 from there. They'd like to finish as high as they can. In my pre-season predictions,
15:02 I went for 17th. I thought they'd finish 17th and I'm sticking with that. I still think
15:09 that's a very realistic target for them to achieve. After Sunderland, they've got four
15:18 of the bottom seven teams between now and Boxing Day. After this game on Saturday, they've
15:25 got a lot of the teams that are in and around them in the league. If they could get some
15:30 decent results in those games, then I think going into the new year, they're in a good
15:35 place to push on and stay up this season. Any time you get promoted, you're going to
15:41 be looking to stay up first and foremost. Anything else is a bit of a bonus, isn't it?
15:47 Just in terms of the game on Saturday, you mentioned earlier that all four of Plymouth's
15:51 wins this season have been at home. But just looking at some of their results, you mentioned
15:56 that 6-2 win over Norwich. They only recorded 31% possession and I was just looking at their
16:01 average possession for home games, it was less than 50%. Sunderland, one of the teams
16:06 in the Championship that do like to have more of the ball. So, how do you see the game playing
16:11 out on Saturday between Sunderland and Plymouth?
16:13 Yeah, I think as you just described it there, probably, Joe, that Sunderland are in good
16:21 form in the league generally. Sixth in the table. Looking at the team here, I've got
16:27 the team from the Birmingham game. You're looking at likes of Roberts, Bellingham and
16:32 Clark, who is a pretty impressive trio there. They might well have a lot of the possession.
16:40 Norwich did, as you rightly say. And that's where Argyle, against some teams, are quite
16:46 capable of dominating possession and being comfortable on the ball. But against perhaps
16:51 some of the stronger teams, they have to have a different way of attack. And that's where
16:56 I think the pace of Mumba, the skill of Whittaker, Finezaz is very clever at picking open people
17:03 with good passes through the centre of the pitch and getting people running in behind.
17:07 So, I do think Argyle, when they need to, they're capable of having plenty of possession
17:13 and taking the game to teams that maybe come down to home park and are more defensive-minded.
17:18 I'm not expecting Sunderland to be defensive-minded. They may well have more of the possession
17:23 than Argyle. But with the players that Argyle have got, when they're on form and they're
17:27 playing well, I think they can still cause good teams in the Championship trouble. And
17:32 like I say, they've played a lot of the top teams now. They've had a few near misses.
17:38 They lost 3-2 at Ipswich. They lost 2-1 at Leeds. They've had some good home wins against
17:44 teams like Blackburn and Norwich. So, Sunderland will probably start the favourites. But I
17:52 think Argyle have got some good attacking players. They've scored goals this season.
17:56 They've got the confidence of an excellent record at home park over the last couple of
18:00 seasons. I think it's... I'm probably cursing it now, but it's got the makings of a really
18:07 good game, I think.
18:08 Have you seen much of Sunderland this season? It's always interesting to get a perspective
18:13 from outside of Sunderland of how they're viewed.
18:15 Well, you're on the TV quite a bit. So, I did see a bit of the Birmingham game because
18:21 Argyle were up at Leeds that day, if I remember rightly, and it was a 12 o'clock kick-off.
18:26 I was in the press room and watched that. I mean, we've played... Argyle and Sunderland
18:32 have played a little bit in the last few years, it feels like, in League One and then now
18:37 in the Championship. Clearly, they've had a few injury problems. But like I said to
18:44 you at the start, Patrick Roberts has played against Argyle for a number of teams, always
18:49 liked him. Joe Bellingham looks as though he's coming along really... I suppose Jack
18:53 Clarke's the player that everyone's going to pick out, isn't he? Because of his goals,
18:57 his assists. He's probably Sunderland's Morgan Whittaker in lots of ways, that can
19:06 create that bit of magic and score a goal from an unexpected position. Looking down
19:12 the bench as well, there's some proven players there, isn't there? I've always liked Alex
19:17 Richard and people like that. And Tony Mowbray, probably one of the most proven Championship
19:27 managers there is. Is that fair to say, Joe? He does what it says on the tin sort of thing
19:34 and seems to have gone into Sunderland, which from the outside, doesn't always look the
19:42 easiest club to be the manager at. And he seems to have gone in there and things are
19:47 fairly smooth and calm, aren't they?
19:48 Yes, it's been a very good match so far, as you say. The clubs will definitely have aspirations
19:54 of challenging again for a playoff place. This season, they're sixth at the minute and
19:58 have to finish in sixth last season. But Chris, thanks very much for coming on the podcast
20:03 ahead of Saturday's match. We usually just finish by asking our guests, how do you think
20:08 the game's going to go and just for a quick score prediction?
20:10 I think it will be a good game to watch. Plenty of attack in football. I can't see there not
20:18 being goals. I'll go 2-2, I think, Joe.
20:22 2-2. Yeah, well, was Plymouth's last home game, was that the 3-3 against Middlesbrough?
20:27 Yes, it was. Yes. Yeah, that was quite an eventful game as well. And that was, you know,
20:34 they conceded, then went ahead and back was on forward. So, yeah, that was a good game.
20:39 It could well be something similar. I wouldn't be at all surprised.
20:42 Well, I'll go for a 2-1 Sunderland win. They will be boosted this weekend by Luke O'Neill
20:50 and Dan Ballard are both back. The two centre-halves who were both suspended for the Birmingham
20:54 game. Ballard missed a game for Northern Ireland during the international break. It looks like
20:58 he's now, he's trained with the team this week. So it looks like he'll be OK for the
21:02 Plymouth game. But Chris, once again, thanks very much for coming on the Raw podcast ahead
21:07 of Saturday's game against Plymouth. And for all the latest news, you can head over to
21:12 the SAFC section of the Sunderland Echo website to find the thoughts of head coach Tony Mowbray
21:18 and we'll have more build up to Saturday's match at Home Park. We'll also have live updates
21:23 from the game on Saturday, a Sunderland take on Plymouth, as well as post-match reaction
21:28 and analysis. Once again, thanks a lot for listening to the Raw podcast.
21:33 [BLANK_AUDIO]