Mustapha Bundu thanked the Green Army after Friday’s frustrating 2-1 defeat at Middlesbrough.
The fixture compilers once again made life difficult for travelling Argyle fans, some of whom would have left in the very early hours of the morning, to get to the second-furthest ground in the season.
Until the second minute of injury time, it looked like Argyle would get a well-earned point. Former Pilgrim Finn Azaz had put Middlesbrough in front, but Bundu equalised quickly, and the Greens had plenty of opportunities to get in front.
As it was, a dubious penalty decision, for which Joe Edwards was sent off, at the start of stoppage time, saw Tommy Conway slot home a spot-kick winner, and Argyle left the North East empty-handed.
“[The mood is] a bit mixed, I would say,” said Bundu, straight after the game. “I thought we did well, a bit unfortunate losing the game in that manner, in the last minute or two, but it was a great performance.
“Breaking it down, we defended well, and we knew we were going to get chances if we defended well, if we stayed compact. The game plan was really good, we had a lot of good chances. If we take those chances, we win this game.
“That was the plan. Wait and wait and, when we can smell something, then we can put on the pressure. We did that in the first half quite a lot; Darko had a few chances that he shot on goal.
“When I got that chance, my eyes lit up. [I had to] stay as cool as possible. Luckily it went in, and then we were back in the game.
“We conceded quite early. Sometimes, playing away games, when we concede everyone starts maybe going down a little bit, but I thought everyone was up. The energy was there, we knew what was at stake and the performance was great.
“But, football is cruel, isn’t it?
“Amazing turnout from [the Green Army] today. They keep this club together. They've stuck behind us for the whole season. Our away form has not been great, but they've been with us every step of the way. Today, they were here singing their hearts out as well.
“Thank you to them, we will see them on Monday and hopefully we can pay them back.”
Monday sees the visit to Home Park of Coventry City. It is game 44 of a 46-game season, and while Argyle are still bottom of the league, potentially needing to win all three remaining games, there is still hope, and Bundu says full focus is going into trying to beat the Sky Blues, then seeing where that leaves us.
“We know what we have to do, from checking all the other results,” he said. “We're still in it; it's not done yet. We got a game on Monday, now we have to get all of our focus in that game.
“We take that momentum now because this was a good team, they’re pushing for play-offs. We know we're fighting to stay in the league, and we come here, put in a great performance, we were just unlucky with the result and how it ended.
“We have another game on Monday in front of our fans, in our home, so we're looking forward to it.
“It's three games, nine points [to play for]. We are only four points from safety. There is still a lot to play for.”
