Hanging Tough

The Argyle manager has seen results go against his promotion-chasing Pilgrims in their last two games, where individual errors, rather than a poor team display, have cost them a top-three automatic promotion spot.

With the going getting tough – and five matches to play, starting at promotion rivals Portsmouth on Saturday – Derek is looking for his tough guys to keep on going. 

He said: “We need players who are going to put their body on the line: Jordon Forster is one of them; Carl McHugh is another one – they don’t think too much about anything else but stopping that ball going in the net. We have got a lot of players like that, and we’ll need them.

“Performance-wise, we have done really well – we are performing at a high standard – but we haven’t got the wins that our play deserves over the last two games, against Exeter and on Saturday against Wimbledon. That’s the frustrating thing.

“We need to eradicate the individual errors that have cost us points in games and we will do okay.

“In open play, we control large spells of the game; we have got an attacking threat just now; we just need to get away from given away goals very cheaply. It is nothing to do with teams going through us; it is individual errors that have caused the goals.

“We just keep on shooting ourselves in the foot at this moment in time, where we are either going to draw the game or win the match and then we give away that advantage. You look at the Accrington game; the game on Saturday; and at Exeter. At this stage of the season, you don’t need that.”