Trip Advisor

Argyle, who currently occupy seventh place in Sky Bet League 2 will face Carlisle United, in Saturday's ante-penultimate Sky Bet League 2 fixture, and Pilgrims performance manager John Harbin has said that no stone is being left unturned in the race to maintain their play-off position.

“We’re travelling today to Preston," said John, on Thursday morning. "We’ll train before we travel, and we’re training at Preston tomorrow. The manager will meet us in Preston tonight, we’ll have another session and a session in the morning - all systems go.

“It’s just breaking the journey down. Some of those trips have taken ten or eleven hours and whether you like it or not they do have an effect on the team, so now we've cut it down so it's now nine or ten. 

“There’s no training time being reduced. Jason Turner (Argyle general manager and club secretary) is good friends with (Preston Chairman of Football) Peter Ridsdale and that’s been organised at no cost to the club; we are grateful to Preston for that."

Saturday’s opponents Carlisle are still involved in a fight for survival as they sit two places clear of the relegation zone, but despite the Cumbrians lowly position in the league, Argyle are treating the fixture with the utmost importance.

John said: “We’re putting special emphasis on the game, it’s crunch time and the closer you get, it will end up almost like play-offs before the play-offs. They’re crucial games.

“Even though its Carlisle and they’re down the wrong end of the table, we’ve had them watched, we’ve had videos and had scouts watch them and the manager watched them himself last night.

“There’s an emphasis being placed on the game without going over the top and being gung-ho and aggressive at training or on edge, so there’s a calmness there.”