"It's not a time to feel sorry for ourselves, it's a time to roll our sleeves up."

"I love it," says Joe Edwards when asked about playing at this stage of his career.

"It's still the thing I love doing most. I still really enjoy it and I still want to help and impact the team around the club, not always just on the pitch. I'll always put this club first because it means so much to me."

The 35-year-old - who turns 36 next week - is now in his eighth season at Plymouth Argyle, the sixth of them as captain, and has seen pretty much it all at Home Park. Promotion and relegation he has been apart of, as he now tries to lead his side back into the Championship.

"I enjoy the responsibility," he says of skippering the side. "I always have done. As one of the more experienced ones, it's my job to try and help us improve as much as we can, work with the staff who work tirelessly every day, and put that game plan into fruition. It's part of the job to turn this around and make it a positive."

It had been a bad week for the Pilgrims. Top of League One this time last week, a 2-0 defeat by Huddersfield Town saw them knocked off the top, before a 3-0 defeat to Stevenage, in which head coach Tom Cleverley said was 'unacceptable', has seen them fall down the table to fifth place.

Edwards admitted the squad have fallen below their own standards in recent outings, but the experienced skipper insists there is no room for feeling sorry for themselves. With the club sitting fifth in the table and just three points off the top spot, it won't take much for things to turn around and get back to winning ways, hopefully starting at Cambridge United on Saturday.

"Two bad performances. I don't think there's too much more into it, we just haven't performed to the levels that we expect of ourselves, and that's been the biggest disappointment," Edwards said of the recent results. "I think we haven't been beaten necessarily because the other side has been a lot, lot better than us. We've lost because we haven't performed to our best ability and to what we're known for.

"If you want to be successful, consistency is what gets you there. The times when you are successful, it's because you don't slip up; you're relentless every day, you're relentless in every game. We don't want to be a team where we're OK for a couple of weeks and not for others. We want to be that consistent team where we perform week in, week out. It's tough physically and mentally, but if you want to have any success at this level, you need it.

"It's not a time to feel sorry for ourselves, it's a time to roll our sleeves up. We know why we haven't got results in the last two games, and that's been the thing that's hurting us because it hasn't been us of recent times. So, yeah, it's about coming together, being together, sticking together, and working even harder."

"It's not unusual in football to have a couple of bad defeats," he said. "It's probably the manner of the performance which is maybe making it seem a little bit worse, but we're fifth in the table and three points off top. Part of my job is to encourage and make sure the boys realise where we're at is a positive position.

"I don't think I've met many players who go out there and don't try to win. Effort and intensity need to come from within, but some days people have off days. That's what separates the good from the average, the good just go again relentlessly, win, lose, or draw. More often than not, when you do that, you get to where you want to be."