Ryan Lowe reveals coronavirus call changed Plymouth plans before Lincoln loss - 7M sport

Ryan Lowe reveals coronavirus call changed Plymouth plans before Lincoln loss



Posted Wednesday, October 21, 2020 by PA

Ryan Lowe reveals coronavirus call changed Plymouth plans before Lincoln loss

Plymouth manager Ryan Lowe revealed he lost three players to coronavirus restrictions less than four hours before kick-off after his side’s two-game winning run came to an end with a 2-0 defeat at Lincoln.

A Jorge Grant penalty just after the break was added to by loanee Brennan Johnson, with his first goal for the club, as the Imps returned to winning ways at Sincil Bank.

But it had been a frustrating time in Lincolnshire for Pilgrims boss Lowe, who revealed he was forced to make changes to his side after news came through at 3.20pm that midfielder Conor Grant had tested positive for Covid-19.

As he lives with team-mates Scott Wootton and Niall Canavan, it meant all three players were not allowed to play.

“Conor didn’t feel too well on Saturday night, so we got him, Scott and Niall tested straight away – we followed all the correct protocols,” explained Lowe. “We got the results back today – Conor tested positive, but Scott and Niall were negative, but we got told by the EFL that they had to go home.

“They came up in their own cars yesterday, but trained with the rest of the lads and been around them all day, but we got a phone call to say they were not allowed to turn up, so we lost two centre-halves. It’s a bit of a shambles.

“Conor has to self-isolate for 10 days and the other two for 14 days. It just doesn’t make any sense. It’s going to be a tough 48 hours for us, I have seen other teams cancel games, but we didn’t want to, we wanted to stand up and be counted.”

On the game itself, Lowe added: ”We made a good account of ourselves and we have been robbed by a penalty decision. It did kill them off a bit and they went a bit flat after that. They’ve had a tough day.”

Lincoln boss Michael Appleton was naturally delighted with his side’s performance, especially in the second half after going into the break level.

“I thought it was going to be another frustrating night,” he said. “In the first 10 to 15 minutes, we came out of the blocks really well and were fantastic – we should have been two or three up.

“Then it was a bit scrappy, the rest of the half, but I still thought we looked the more likely team to score. But we upped it in the second half after getting into them a bit at half-time and there looked like there was only going to be one winner.

“It was a good win and it was a much tougher match than the one we’ll have on Saturday (against Ipswich). We were arguably better on the ball last Saturday (versus Fleetwood), but we did enough to win the game comfortably and keeping a clean sheet was massive.

On Johnson’s first goal for the club, he added: “It was a tougher finish than it looked and he made it look easy.”

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