As the city prepares for Plymouth Argyle vs Liverpool in the FA Cup Fourth Round at Home Park, we introduce our first piece of exclusive Plymouth Argyle fan content in collaboration with Argyle Life. Sam Down gives his view on the season so far.
(UPDATE 09-02-2025) Plymouth Argyle stunned Premier League leaders Liverpool with a dramatic 1-0 victory in the FA Cup fourth round, securing their place in the competition’s last 16 for the first time since 2007. In front of a packed Home Park, Ryan Hardie’s second-half penalty proved decisive after Harvey Elliott was penalised for handball.
View this post on Instagram
As the transfer window slams shut, the Argyle season so far has been undeniably a whirlwind to experience. We’ve veered from shock, to hope, to misery, briefly back to hope, firmly at misery again before the briefest flickering of hope once again started to emerge.
When we first appointed Wayne Rooney in the summer, the foremost reaction was one of shock. How could someone whose record was so bad possibly be the right choice, or one driven by data?
Denial became the fastest-growing coping mechanism around. Many fans, including me (I will freely admit), were encouraged by Rooney’s media work when he joined. His enthusiasm for the club and the area were far more stirring words than the stuffy cautious tones of his predecessor, Ian Foster, who somehow lead us to believe we were lucky to even be in the Championship!
Rooney also genuinely seemed to have an interesting idea of how he wanted the squad to work on a tactical level. New signing Ibrahim Cissoko looked a particularly exciting addition.
All this positivity was bought back down to earth with a nasty bump however, following the shambolic 4-0 loss away to Sheffield Wednesday on the opening day. The scoreline alone doesn’t reflect the extent of the dominance, Argyle hardly had a sniff from start to end.
The remainder of the run to the first international break was better, but not much better. A battling draw at QPR with 10 men was the only highlight, two turgid performances at home to Hull and Stoke didn’t set the juices flowing.
Then came the second phase of the season and inexplicably our best run of form against our toughest opponents. Surprising home wins with good performances against Sunderland, Luton and (especially) Blackburn. Narrow away losses at West Brom and Burnley rounded off a good month for the greens.
We then went into a theoretically much easier run in the hope that this could inspire a good run that took us up towards mid table…and it was a total debacle.
Teams had worked out how to cut off our passing lines and Rooney didn’t have the tactical acumen to counter act this. A long and frustrating run followed where we only won one in 20 league games, late equalisers against Preston and Watford only serving to paper over the cracks.
The final five weeks of Rooney’s tenure were the worst yet. We had a 6-1 loss at Norwich, a 4-0 loss at Bristol City and a 4-0 Boxing Day drubbing at Coventry to boot. We briefly tried other methods that didn’t involve a sacking (Mike Phelan’s 23 day spell as assistant head coach for example) but 2024’s final match, a 2-0 loss at Oxford, proved the writing was on the wall.
Rooney was sacked on New Year’s Eve. Almost all Argyle fans were surely expecting the return of Steven Schumacher and he was the hot favourite for so long, but Argyle shocked supporters by announcing the hire of Austrian manager Miron Muslic on a three and a half year deal.
It’s early days but so far Muslic absolutely can talk the talk; it’s time to see if he can walk the walk. The transfer window additions prove he’s building a side that will scrap and battle for every ball.
To quote the man himself, he doesn’t aim to win beauty contests but to win football matches. The surprise victory over West Brom was certainly a good start.
Argyle Life – the road to the Football Content Awards
Argyle Life was founded in 2015 and so far, we’ve written articles under the stewardship of Derek Adams, Ryan Lowe, Steven Schumacher, Ian Foster, Wayne Rooney and now Miron Muslic.
As we approach the ten year anniversary of the site, fan media is now bigger and better than ever across the board. As we enter into this exciting new partnership with the Chronicle, it’s worth taking a moment to look back on how we got here.
When we first started, Argyle were in the depths of League Two and were entering our fourth season at that level. Enthusiasm for the club around the city was virtually non-existent. Certainly, it was nowhere near the bubbling cauldron of excitement that you see now (either on social media or in person). Whilst we would produce two or three articles a week, it was rare that they’d produce the level of discussion we’re now used to
As Argyle began their climb through the leagues, Argyle Life grew in tandem. In 2018 we launched our popular transfer centre: a rumour mill, but with a twist. Rather than just sharing the rumours, we would act as a sort of fact-checking service in which we assess the reliability of the person who started the rumour and give our best guess as to the likelihood of it happening.
This is before we even mention the birth of the Green & White podcast. It began as an entirely pre-recorded venture, where we would discuss the most recent game in isolation. Now, in the post covid era, after a brief break, bought on largely by fatigue and frustration in an era where fans weren’t allowed to see games, we have begun to transition towards live streams.
Now at 8pm every Sunday, (or more accurately, 8pm the day or so after every time we play) three or more of us go live on You Tube and X (formerly Twitter) to not only give our own views, but to also engage with comments and questions as they come in. And, of course, we still produce the content as a podcast for those who can’t engage live. We have also started an ArgyleLife shop, social media ‘phone-in’ spaces and appear as guests on other fan content platforms.
All this comes back to the question: why? Why do we put in so much effort and time to talk about our club? Clue: it certainly isn’t the financial reward, as much as that is appreciated from time to time!
As well as our passion and enjoyment for it, we believe that fan media isn’t just fun, it’s important.
Football clubs have a vital role to play bringing communities together, both offline and online. We think that it’s vital to have a collective space for fans to share their opinions and feelings in the midst of a big match. Just for me personally, the amount of people I’ve met through the wider Argyle network is incredible. People who are different in so many ways are bought together through football and that’s what we aim to do.
We also aim to provide top quality analysis through our written work (hence our strapline ‘The Alternative Argyle voice’) and to be a critical friend to the club where needed. In December, we took the difficult approach of running an editorial asking for a change of manager. We felt the club was at that point rudderless and sleepwalking to relegation. Whilst we don’t take credit for the eventual change of manager, we think it shows the importance of holding the club’s feet to the fire where applicable.
Our recent positive trajectory culminated in November with a trip to the Tottenham Stadium for the Football Content Awards. We were nominated for best Football League Podcast and whilst we didn’t take the crown this time, in a competitive field it was amazing to be there.
We’re now delighted to partner with the Plymouth Chronicle to give more and more people in the local community the chance to enjoy and engage with our content!
