A late double from Plymouth Argyle beats 10-man Exeter City in the Carabao Cup, and Alex Hartridge calls out abuse from Exeter fans.
Plymouth scored two goals in two minutes after a sequence of errors in the First Round. Alex Hartridge put Plymouth ahead against his former side in the 92nd minute before Aribim Pepple then made it 2-0 with seconds to go until full time.
Ethan Sunderland came off the bench in the 65th minute, received a yellow card in the 78th, then was shown a red on the 88th after pulling back Matty Sorinola.
The game also had to be stopped after an object, thought to be a cigarette lighter, was thrown onto the pitch before Plymouth’s Pepple had a goal on 45 minutes disallowed.
Plymouth will now face Coventry in the Second Round of the Carabao Cup. Check out the highlights and post-match interviews below…
Plymouth Argyle head coach Tom Cleverley said to BBC Sport after the game:
“There’s always an overwhelming sort of sense of relief when you manage to achieve these moments.
“But I’m sure that when I put my head down tonight there’ll be a real proud and pleased part of what I feel, because we’ve managed to overcome a lot of challenges last year as a team and prove a lot of things that we were not so good at, but the one thing that was outstanding was a derby win.
“We didn’t show the best version of ourselves last year in both of them so it’s nice to put a dominating performance on tonight.
“We had to be patient, so did our supporters, but we got there in the end.”
Cleverley on the abuse aimed at Hartridge, as per Plymouth Live: “It was close to the bone wasn’t it? It was over the line but these things unfortunately happen in derbies and there is only one way as a player you can respond to that – and what a story.
“Bim will take some of the headlines, and Freddie (Issaka), as an academy product, with the impact he made off the bench, but I think there is only one story come out of this game.
“It’s the guy who used to play for Exeter, who suffered some pretty poor abuse in the first half and then goes and scores the winner.
“I’m delighted for him. He has been outstanding since he has been here. To be successful you need as many players who you can count on to be seven out of 10 every week, and he’s certainly one of them.
“We were DESPERATE to show a better version of ourselves”Tom Cleverley was proud of the performance of his Plymouth team in the Devon Derby 💪 pic.twitter.com/jZ2Z8OMqDj— Sky Sports Football (@SkyFootball) August 10, 2026
“No words, really, amazing atmosphere”
“This is a HUGE club, never a League One club”Plymouth goalscorers Alex Hartridge and Aribim Pepple react to winning the Devon Derby and progressing in the Carabao Cup 🎙️ pic.twitter.com/Dn3bOXCSEN— Sky Sports Football (@SkyFootball) August 10, 2026
Exeter boss Matt Taylor said, as per the club website: “I’m hurt, proud and emotions are mixed. We gave so much and got so little out there. The end result, which is painful right now and the physical exertion of the group was was outstanding. The honesty of the group was outstanding. We lacked quality in certain moments of the game, and that’s to be expected at times.
“They’ve got some good players and then a bit of an experience as the second half went on and a little bit of lack of control and then a set piece. We defended our box so, so well for such long parts of that game, we feel a little bit hard done by in terms of the, the refereeing decision for, for that goal.
“That could easily be in a foul against one of their players. But you know, I certainly don’t want to make an excuses and take anything away from Plymouth. And the way it finished in terms of second goal was an extra add to our pain right now, but it wasn’t a fair reflection on the rest of the game. It was a real game of fine margins.”
Here’s the social media reaction after a late double from Plymouth beats 10-man Exeter, and Alex Hartridge calls out abuse from Exeter fans…
@olpafc_: ALEX HARTRIDGE HE LEFT COS YOURE SHIT
@SebC__: Exeter graduate Alex Hartridge with a bullet header one minute from time for Plymouth 😭😭😭😭 Who wrote the script 😂😂😂


