What has Steven said ahead of the Papa John’s Trophy Final? For this Sunday’s Papa John’s Trophy Final, Plymouth Argyle manager Steven Schumacher wants to offer the Green and White Army an experience they will never forget. The 38-year-old spoke with Ian Evatt and their Bolton Wanderers counterparts to preview the Final on this week’s episode of the Official EFL Podcast. Read every statement made by the Pilgrim’s management leading up to this weekend’s championship game…
What has Steven said ahead of the Papa John’s Trophy Final?
Attendance is mind-blowing.
“It’s mind-blowing. Argyle last visited Wembley in the Play-Off Final in 2016, and we sold 33,000 tickets for that event. By all accounts, it wasn’t a wonderful experience. The team didn’t perform well on the day, and Wimbledon defeated them, so everyone remembers that for the wrong reasons.
“I want to guarantee a competitive football game. The games are always entertaining when we play against them since our two teams’ styles complement one another fairly well. The score remained 0-0 in their house, but it probably shouldn’t have. We hope to deliver a strong show for our admirers, who travel a long way to see us.”
“A fresh set of shoes”
“For the residents of the city, Plymouth Argyle is everything. Everyone is really buzzing about it. My wife and I were strolling around this morning – I had to grab a pair of shoes for Sunday – and so many people stopped me in the street saying, “Good luck” and “We’re going to be there.” The physio will be there if I start to stagger around the field with blisters! “
“A good opportunity to work with the kids.”
“Early on, we thought it was a fantastic opportunity to use some of the fresh faces from our Academy. As we determined a few years ago that we lacked the resources to sustain an Under-23s squad, we only have an Under-18s team and nothing else until the first team. We have a fantastic chance to observe how those players interact, so I tried pairing four or five juniors with four or five seniors this season to see how it goes.
“We simply wanted to keep winning,” said the team. “The games just kept coming, and we kept checking them off and giving excellent performances. We’ve really liked the experience, and now we’re in the Final, and it will be a brilliant day that hopefully everyone will enjoy.”
Serious discussions must be had.
“I genuinely feel as though, this season, our players have been brilliant, and they’ve accepted decisions we’ve had to make. The hardest part is trying to keep everyone in your squad motivated when you’re trying to name a team and go through the reasons why you’re picking that team but trying to convince people that they’re still part of it.
“When you play at Wembley on Sunday, where everyone wants to play, it won’t be any simpler. There will be some people who won’t make the squad, and that will be the most difficult conversation to have. Fortunately, this weekend’s game isn’t the season’s final contest, and we still have eight more cup finals. Everyone will play their part. “It happened to be one time when I got left out of the starting 11 in a Play-Off Final for Fleetwood, and it broke me. It was the last game of the season, and I stewed on that all the summer.”
