And then there were two. Argyle have two games remaining in their Sky Bet Championship season, with the next being a Saturday trip to Preston North End.
Argyle need to win the game, and hope some other scores go their way, in order to keep survival hopes alive. However, Head Coach Miron Muslic is boosted by recent home wins over Norwich City, Sheffield United and, most recently, Coventry City, as well as a creditable performance in defeat at Middlesbrough.
He told Argyle TV: “I’m very confident because the performance of the lads was there to give me this belief and this confidence. If you see our performances against Norwich, Sheffield United, Middlesbrough away and, above all, the reaction and the performance just 48 hours after, after this heavy knockout against Middlesbrough, against Coventry.
“That gives us the right confidence, the right mentality, the right spirit that we can do it.
“Unfortunately, it's not in our hands. We can't control what happens in other stadiums, but we can control our performance. We can, again, give everything and try to be as strong as possible.
“If we can get the three points, then let's see what happens then in the other stadiums.”
Approaching 2,000 members of the Green Army will be heading to Deepdale for the crucial clash.
Opponents Preston North End are not yet safe. They sit three points above the relegation zone, but have only won one in 12, and continue to look over their shoulders. The fact that PNE have something to play for could play into Argyle’s hands, reckons Muslic.
He said: “I think the situation clearly changed for them, being completely out of the danger zone, being almost in the middle of nowhere, which is a big compliment. But then not being able to perform the last seven, eight, nine games and suddenly you can get in a mess.
“They have something to play for. I see this as a big advantage because again, we are used to this kind of pressure game, and it's something new for Preston, so we make sure we use this.
“But it's never up to the opponent. It's always up to our performance. It's always up to the way how we deal with the game, how we execute our game plan.
“If you can do this, like we did it the last couple of weeks, then I'm very confident that we can take the three points.
“The Green Army will be there, as always. If, as an organisation, we could perform throughout the whole season like the Green Army does, home and away, we would be safe a long, long time ago.
“They're there for us, we just have to make sure that we can reward them, we can give them the performance they deserve, and we can try everything so we have a final at the last game against Leeds United.”
