by RICK COWDERY
ARGYLE manager Carl Fletcher felt for his players after Tom Pope's 86th-minute goal saw the Pilgrims lose 1-0 against Port Vale despite a magnificent defensive display.
"The lads gave me everything," said Fletch. "I'm just disappointed for them we didn't see the game out.
"In the games you play, sometimes you are going to have loads of possession and sometimes you're not. Today, we didn't, but we dug in and did our defensive duties.
"All our players know what they need to do defensively and, as a team, I thought we did it well.
"We would have taken a draw away from home at a tough place like Port Vale, but, every game we go into, we want to win.
"Sometimes you can go out and things click and you don't have too much of a problem; at other times, you have to grind things out.
"That's what we had to do today.We knew, as the game went on, it was going to be that kind of game. It was just unfortunate we didn't see it through.
"The main thing is that we're hard to beat. That's the basis. If you start with that, the other stuff will come along.
"It was disappointing to lose a goal towards the end.
"We didn't play that great, but we dug in and worked hard and, defensively, looked fairly comfortable. In possession, we could have been a bit better.
"I thought it was going to peter out to a 0-0 draw.
"If you don't play well, you try to be hard to beat. In any game, you have to defend when the balls come into the box, and do the right things.
"On a tough pitch, we did that and stuck to our task, and their lad came up with a bit of quality at the end to kill it."
Fletch was not helped when forward Warren Feeney was ruled out with a calf problem, necessitating a call-up for Nick Chadwick after a sore hamstring, while centre-back Darren played despite a feeling ill.
"It was tough," said Carl. "Feeney went down this morning, so Chaddy had to play and he has been out for four weeks; and Pursey had flu.
"Pursey didn't train yesterday. He was out for the count. He's got through it.
"You just have to deal with, roll with the punches. You can only play what you're dealt. It was disappointing things changed round at the last minute, but that's football.
"That's what I've found out - you are non-stop putting fires out and, as soon as you think you've got them all out, there's about ten more."
The defeat put Argyle back into the npower League 2 relegation places with 18 games of the season remaining, but Carl refuses to look beyond next week's visit of Southend to Home Park.
"We can only look at each game and try and do what we need to do," he said.
"All we can do is concentrate on what we do, and try to do the things we want to do. If we get them right, everything else will take care of itself."
