Cleverley apologised to the travelling Green Army after the Pilgrims lost 3-0 away to Stevenage

Tom Cleverley has admitted there are 'a lot of questions' after back-to-back League One defeats for Plymouth Argyle that he has to come up with answers for.

The Pilgrims were top of the table going into their game against Huddersfield Town at Home Park on Saturday and were beaten more comprehensively than the 2-0 scoreline suggested.

Then, instead of an Argyle response in their away game against Stevenage, they produced what Cleverley called an 'unacceptable' performance in a 3-0 defeat.

The Pilgrims conceded the opening goal from the fourth consecutive match in all competitions when Michael Mellon fired Stevenage ahead in the 19th minute.

Former Exeter City striker Josh Magennis extended their lead shortly before the half-hour mark and after a brief period of improvement from Argyle at the start of the second half, their fading hopes of a comeback were ended by a goal from Phoenix Patterson in the 83rd minute.

With another away game to come on Saturday, against fourth-placed Cambridge United, Cleverley has a lot of weigh up before then.

Cleverley said: "We are not doing the basics well enough. I can only apologise to the supporters that made the journey this evening because the bare minimum I have to coach, demand, pick a team to be able to do is compete, and the last two games we have not at all.

"If you don't compete, if you don't win duels, if you don't land on seconds, if you don't run and fight then you are going to find it difficult to score goals and difficult to keep it out the back of your net.

"It looked like two centre-forwards (Argyle's Will Evans and Bim Pepple) who were well managed by two centre-halves at one end and two centre-forwards who caused mayhem at the other end, and in between that not much better either.

"A lot of questions from the last two games and it's my job to provide the answers, and real clarity and direction come Thursday to make sure we know exactly how to go and get a result on Saturday, and I'm pretty sure top of the priorities will be picking a team that is going to fight and compete."

Cleverley continued: "I can take technical mistakes, I can absolutely accept technical mistakes. Man City make technical mistakes.

"We work through the week to make sure we are technically clean as possible, but if it happens at Man City it's going to happen in League One where there are going to be technical mistakes.

"The things that you can control, so that is all those things I have just spoke about, the basics, if they aren't there you are going to find it exceptionally hard to win a game of football at this level.

"It's a tough, tough evening for us but I do think it's one we deserved. We deserve to feel the pain of that. I have said it many times before, it's dangerous if you come to the right result the wrong way and tonight we got exactly what we deserved and we need to understand that and be better."

Asked whether he was surprised by Argyle's performance, Cleverley replied: "From what I have seen over the last 10, 11 months, yes, for sure. It's half a team that are brand new that are still learning the way and it's new how heavy the shirt is playing for Argyle.

"There is a lot of pressure with that but that's why we coach the controllables so much because low confidence, high confidence you get a baseline of performance.

"It has shocked me, I must say. Now I take as much responsibility as anyone. I pick the team, I create the game plan. I will be there to support those players come Thursday.

"Whenever you support a group you ask for the hard work and the endeavour, and the roll your sleeves up back, and I'm positive that's what we will get."

Argyle's away form has been excellent throughout 2026 but Stevenage were simply better all over the pitch than Argyle, who were well beaten and demoralised by the closing minutes of the match.

Cleverley said: "They (Stevenage) have not gone 4-4-2 for a while, but 4-4-2 against 4-4-2 shouldn't look as man-v-man as it did everywhere on the pitch.

"So if you are putting pressure on your right hand side, which was nowhere near good enough this evening, whenever we had pressure on the ball they managed to dribble out of it without any contact.

"There was a bit of uncertainty about committing to our duels, and then on the other side of the pitch you try and offer as much cover as possible, which we didn't quite get right as well.

"Went a little bit gung-ho second half, and we were open for the third goal., but it was a messy performance that was underlined by poor fundamentals."

Cleverley is sure to look at making some changes to the Argyle team for the game against Cambridge, but injuries to Michael Baidoo, Malachi Boateng, Owen Oseni and Mathias Ross do limit his options to do so.

"We are a very thin squad at the minute so to change it too much is difficult," he said. "We are desperate for Michael, Malachi, Mathias and Owen to be back, which they all will be in the next couple of weeks, so that will be huge in terms of the quality that those four bring, but also the competition.

"It's unacceptable to put in a performance like that. I absolutely hold my hands up and apologise for that performance this evening because it's unacceptable, like I said.

"When you represent a big club you get a lot of pats on the back when it's going well, and these players have built up some credit over the last 11 months but that can diminish very quickly with performances like that.

"We need to not take that support for granted. You need to earn that support. You need to earn those pats on the back and we certainly didn't do that tonight."