Plymouth boss Tom Cleverley labels Cobblers 'unpredictable' and singles out danger man

Plymouth, relegated from the Championship last year, have significantly underperformed expectations so far this season but they did move off the bottom of the League One table with victory at Port Vale last weekend.

Cleverley is now targeting back-to-back wins but he’s not expecting it to be easy, saying: "It’s a tough one to predict this weekend because they’ve played three or four different systems in the last few games.

“What I would say is that they look very well coached and I thought they were excellent against Cardiff last weekend, even though they lost the game. If you look at all the stats from that game, they were quite unfortunate to lose. I watched it and I thought they were brilliant, and trying to predict how they’ll play is difficult.

"They can adapt stylistically and play different ways and whichever way they go, they are always well coached and Ethan Wheatley, on loan from Manchester United, is someone I have watched closely and he is a real threat in the league at the minute. Kevin’s coached them really well, they’re unpredictable in how they play and they have some real threats in their team.”

Ayman Benarous is fit after fears he had suffered a hamstring injury last week, Joe Ralls is in contention for a first Plymouth start and defender Julio Pleguezuelo could be on the bench having not played at all this season due to a knee injury. Xavier Amaechi, Bim Pepple, Bradley Ibrahim, Caleb Watts and Jack MacKenzie all remain out.

Saturday’s game is Plymouth’s first at home in over a month. The Pilgrims have not played at Home Park since the 2-1 loss to AFC Wimbledon on October 18th.

"It's a bit of a relief to be honest, every team always performs better at home," admitted Cleverley. "We haven't made the most of our home advantage this year, or certainly as much as we have in previous years, but that's something we want to address.

"Successful teams are all built on home records and defensive records, but we've been quite far off it in both aspects. Tempo and intensity always gets your home crowd with you, and since I gave the players four days off in-between Huddersfield and Port Vale I've seen a real freshness to the players last week and this week in training."