The last time Plymouth hosted Rotherham was the penultimate Saturday before Christmas 2023, when a dramatic 3-2 Championship win was the last before Steven Schumacher left – in a helicopter, so it is said – for Stoke. Then everything started to go wrong, hence the relief on Saturday when Plymouth beat Rotherham 1-0, relieving pressure on Tom Cleverley and fears of a second successive relegation.
It wasn’t pretty but while a smart first-half finish from Joe Ralls was not quite enough to lift the Devon side out of the League One dropzone, it did send the 14,000 or so Plymouth fans home happy for the first time in months. Cleverley, appointed in the summer, was certainly smiling after a second 1-0 win in four days even if his men spent much of the second half hanging on.
