Could Plymouth's second string hold a cup tie against Chesterfield?

The Carabao Cup has always asked awkward questions of top-flight clubs in September, and the awkwardness is sharpest when a manager empties his bench and expects the answer to be the same. Plymouth Argyle, of the Premier Division, chose seven players who had started six of the previous seven matches not to be in the 20 at all, and trusted instead to an eighteen-year-old making his first start in midfield and another making only his second. Chesterfield, two levels below, came with four summer signings in the side and a goalkeeper, Mick Owens, newly arrived for £3.6m from Huddersfield Town, who had two starts behind him.

What followed, in front of 23,821 at Home Park, was a tie Plymouth controlled for long stretches without ever quite shaking free. They had the ball for 56 per cent of it, and eleven of their fifteen attempts found the target, but the finishing was loose: Dejan Dausch took four shots worth a fraction over half a goal between them, and the woodwork intervened once. Chesterfield, with nine attempts, stayed close enough to believe, and Tajio Lloyd's goal kept them there. Richard Mitchell and Sergio Prieto scored for Plymouth; the visitors answered through Lloyd and one other, and the sides finished level at 2-2.

The penalties went Chesterfield's way, 4-3, and Owens, whose distribution and presence had drawn the eye all evening, was the difference. It is worth remembering that cup shocks are rarely about the better team on the night; they are about the side that keeps its shape when the crowd starts to murmur. Chesterfield did. Plymouth, having finished the match in a shape they had not started in, will have learned something about the depth behind their first eleven. Whether they wanted to learn it in September is another matter.