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TWO down at half-time, stunning comebacks and ending up celebrating identical 3-2 victories – what a magical weekend for our boys in England’s top three football leagues.
It doesn’t matter that both Jordan Zemura and Brendan Galloway were not part of the show, when the comeback stories were completed.
Both players started the matches when Bournemouth visited Nottingham Forest, in a
Premiership battle, and Plymouth Argyle dated Derby County, at Pride Park, in a League One showdown.
Zemura was again thrust into the starting XI when the Cherries lined up against Forest, the two-time European champions.
Bournemouth found themselves down 0-2 at the break, after goals from Cheikou Kouyate and Brennan Johnson, from the penalty spot.
Interim boss Gary O’Neil tweaked his formation, from four at the back, with Zemura being sacrificed for Ryan Fredericks, and the Cherries roared back to score three times through Philip Billing, Dominic Solanke and Jaidon Anthony.
“I felt it gave us some control,” O’Neil told the Bournemouth Echo. “It was in my mind before the game but because we had such a quick turnaround, it was a struggle to get any work into them.
“I felt we could still cause them problems with our back four. I felt we did and we lacked quality at the end of it.”
He added:
“At that point at half-time it was like – we are going to go with what we initially thought.
“I wouldn’t give the system too much credit. You can change the system all you want – if you’ve not got a group that believes and goes and delivers it, it wouldn’t make any difference.
“Full credit goes to the group of players that have given me anything again. That’s two games on the trot now where they have literally emptied the tank for me.”
At Pride Park, Galloway started the game for Plymouth Argyle and they found themselves 0-2 down in their match against Derby County.
Galloway was replaced in the 75th minute, as Plymouth went for broke, and they scored twice, in the last 13 minutes, to complete a 3-2 win.
Sam Cosgrove scored twice on his debut for Plymouth.
“I don’t think debuts get much better than that,” the two-goal hero told the Plymouth Herald.
“It has been a whirlwind past couple of days but I couldn’t be more glad for the team, the staff, everyone connected with the club.
“You come here and you see the quality that Derby have got, the size of the squad, the size of the stadium and to come out with the result is fantastic.”
He added:
“As a striker I suppose you have got to be ready for all possibilities. There was a gap that opened up and I just tried to position myself in the right area and credit to Niall, what a ball it was to me, so that got the ball rolling.”
Mathew Masinge
Online Reporter