Got to be honest, the moment Lowe went for Josh Grant ahead of Will Aimson against Exeter, I was waiting for a set-piece goal as a result, and - to be fair - they didn't disappoint.
Nothing particularly unusual here - I could have probably dredged up an old thread from 2016/17, or if I've missed a thread that already talks about this I'm sure the mods will move this - this is the annual "why are Argyle conceding so many headers?" thread.
Per my counting (yes, I have gone back and looked at every single set-piece crossed into Argyle's box this season), our defenders (Wootton, Sawyer, Aimson, Canavan, Grant, Riley, McFadzean) have collectively lost two-thirds of all set-pieces crosses into the box. Yikes.
One of the big issues for me has been the refusal to start Canavan and Aimson together all season. Canavan is underrated in the air and (if you read the article) you'll see he's been Argyle's best this season at winning headers from opposition set-pieces. Aimson is the second-best aerially in my opinion (though there is a question over how easy that is to prove), so putting the two together should help, instead of only having one player
Meanwhile, it has been something of a minor miracle that Argyle are yet to concede a goal after Wootton's lost a header from a set-piece. (Genuinely, I counted six times that he lost one within the six-yard box - Colchester, Salford, Reading, Bristol Rovers, Carlisle and Leyton Orient - without the opposition team scoring.)
Plymouth Argyle’s bane: conceding from headers
Just under half of all the league goals conceded (8/20) have been directly related to losing headers, leading to eight points being dropped. Were Argyle to have taken just half of those points, they would be positioned seventh and within three points of the automatic promotion places.
But that doesn't fully demonstrate the scale of the problem, as that number could be considerably higher. Just a brief glance back across Argyle's campaign reveals another nine goals that could have been conceded.
Nothing particularly unusual here - I could have probably dredged up an old thread from 2016/17, or if I've missed a thread that already talks about this I'm sure the mods will move this - this is the annual "why are Argyle conceding so many headers?" thread.
Per my counting (yes, I have gone back and looked at every single set-piece crossed into Argyle's box this season), our defenders (Wootton, Sawyer, Aimson, Canavan, Grant, Riley, McFadzean) have collectively lost two-thirds of all set-pieces crosses into the box. Yikes.
One of the big issues for me has been the refusal to start Canavan and Aimson together all season. Canavan is underrated in the air and (if you read the article) you'll see he's been Argyle's best this season at winning headers from opposition set-pieces. Aimson is the second-best aerially in my opinion (though there is a question over how easy that is to prove), so putting the two together should help, instead of only having one player
Meanwhile, it has been something of a minor miracle that Argyle are yet to concede a goal after Wootton's lost a header from a set-piece. (Genuinely, I counted six times that he lost one within the six-yard box - Colchester, Salford, Reading, Bristol Rovers, Carlisle and Leyton Orient - without the opposition team scoring.)
Plymouth Argyle’s bane: conceding from headers
Just under half of all the league goals conceded (8/20) have been directly related to losing headers, leading to eight points being dropped. Were Argyle to have taken just half of those points, they would be positioned seventh and within three points of the automatic promotion places.
But that doesn't fully demonstrate the scale of the problem, as that number could be considerably higher. Just a brief glance back across Argyle's campaign reveals another nine goals that could have been conceded.