ARGYLE Manager Paul Sturrock has admitted that he is facing the toughest period of his 16-year managerial career.

Following last weekend's 3-0 home defeat to Derby County, the Pilgrims have now only recorded one win from their past 13 league games and sit 17th in the Championship table.

"This is the worst results in a row I have ever had as a football manager," he said.

"It is so exasperating to be involved in it.

"I've never tasted it and it's sticking in my throat at this minute in time.

"We've put ourselves in the mire. Now we've got to go dig deep as there are lots of teams in this mire with us.

"I'm going to work and work and try and turn around this home form."

Luggy has expressed that this plunge in form is starting to play on the minds of his players and that he will need to expel these thoughts before they begin to manifest themselves on the pitch.

He said: "It's something that is beginning to rear its ugly head on a regular occurrence because of the lack of goals we've scored.

"It needs to dramatically change because the confidence has eroded out of the team.

"For 45 minutes we were as good as Derby, if not better. The disappointing thing for me was the reaction of the players when we lost the second goal."

"It seems to be in the second half of the games.

"I said we seemed to be very confident against Bristol City and with Derby but we let ourselves down in the second half of those two games."

Prior to the weekend defeat, Argyle had secured two vital points from their gruelling back-to-back away fixtures to Ipswich and Preston.

The manager has now conceded upon reflection that he may have underestimated the fitness of some players coming into the Rams clash.

He said: "We've checked over pro-zone and their high intensity work [against Derby] was dramatically down from any of the other games we've played at home this year.

"Our high-intensity work was dramatically curtailed in the full 90 minutes of that game on Saturday, though it was much higher in the first half than then second.

"Nobody imagined that we would go to Preston and Ipswich in the form we were in and come back with two points.

"It just shows that we took more out of ourselves in the Preston and Ipswich games than I first thought.

"In hindsight, I should have maybe freshened the team up a bit more than I did."

Matt Skinner