Plymouth Argyle 0 Luton 1: Match report

AILING Argyle limped to a second successive home defeat, and dropped out of the Sky Bet League 2 play-off standings, as Andy Drury’s first-half goal – his first of the season – proved decisive at Home Park.

With considerably more than a third of the first-team squad unavailable to manager John Sheridan, and all three of the recent loan signings who helped propel the Pilgrims into the top seven before Christmas missing, any result from those remaining might have been regarded as a triumph.

However, the make-do-and-mend task proved beyond those unaffected by illness, injury or suspension.

The Pilgrims’ starting line-up for their first home game of 2015 showed four changes from the one that had rung out 2014 less than three weeks previously.

Olly Lee, borrowed from Birmingham City less than 24 hours earlier, started in central midfield, having met his new team-mates only on the morning of the game. The introduction of Milton Keynes' Tom Flanagan – a home debutant – to the Pilgrims’ squad on the eve of the previous week’s game at Southend seemed positively luxurious by comparison.

The two new faces reduced the current number of participating loan players at Home Park to two, with Anthony O’Connor having returned to Blackburn Rovers after the 0-0 draw at Roots Hall following the expiry of his loan, and Andy Kellett unable to complete his temporary spell as a participant because of injury.

His name was added to a list of unavailable first-team squad members that also included: Jason Banton, Marvin Morgan, Ollie Norburn, Peter Hartley, Deane Smalley, Aaron Bentley, River Allen, and Matt Lecointe. Uncle Tom Cobley would have struggled to pass a fitness test at Home Park this week.

Ben Purrington and Dominic Blizzard were drafted into action from a bench which, even with the inclusion of Jamie Richards – back from a loan spell in Ireland with Linfield – numbered just three outfield players and goalkeeper James Bittner.

Luton – like Argyle, unable to reproduce their pre-Christmas form post the opening of the prezzies – had few such concerns and made just one change to the 11 that started the previous week’s 0-0 home draw with Shrewsbury Town, Shaun Whalley replacing Luke Rooney in midfield. Ex-Pilgrim Paul Connolly, whose season has been affected by injury, was a substitute.