Pilgrim's Progress

Clean Sweep in The Champions League Group

Plymouth Argyle completed a clean sweep in their Champions League group, despite complaints from Bayern Munich about their ‘weakened’ side in the last group match.

Up first were Bayern at Home Park, and they were beaten 3-1 by Argyle, despite Harry Kane giving the Germans the lead with a 28th minute penalty.  Bayern dominated possession, as expected, but the Pilgrims hit them on the break three times and secured the win. 

Man of the Match was the newly-recovered Bukayo Saka, who made one goal and scored one himself.

Bukayo Saka enjoys his outing vs Bayern

The result left the group table looking ominous for the German champions

...and they lodged a note with UEFA warning Argyle about playing a weakened side in their last group match against Atalanta.

Argyle duly ignored Bayern’s protestations, fielded a “weakened” side and still beat Atalanta 3-2, academy graduate Mikel Gomez scoring the winner near the end.  In fact, Bayern’s complaint was unfounded because they fell foul of the ‘head to head’ rule with Atalanta, and promptly went out of the competition, despite beating Club Brugge and ending on the same points total as the Italians.

In the Premier League, Argyle passed Manchester City in the table with a double win over Manchester’s sides, including a thrilling 4-0 demolition of United and a 4-1 win at the Etihad, the latter of which owed everything to counter-attacking football and the dead eye of Rayan Cherki. 

Cherki scored his first hat-trick for the Pilgrims:

...and academy graduate Lorenzo Battaglia completed a scoreline that looked far easier than the match actually was.

So, half-way through December and Argyle have hit the top spot in the table.