Plymouth Argyle manager Tom Cleverley was disappointed with his side’s “casual” performance in their 1-0 loss to Peterborough United.

After winning three consecutive games in all competitions, the Pilgrims faced a team that was at the bottom of the table when the game began. But Jimmy-Jay Morgan’s first-half goal was enough to give Posh their second win of the season, despite Argyle having a goal ruled out shortly before half-time.

“I thought we lacked a bit of tempo, we didn’t test their box enough, and we didn’t manage the game well enough in the final half-hour when we needed to be a little more direct,” said Cleverley, who watched from the seats after getting sent off last week.

“We brought on a second attacker, they camped out a little bit, and football isn’t flawless; we’re not going to play nice pretty stuff all the time; sometimes you have to test their box enough times before something breaks through, and I don’t think we did that today.

“The thinking and approach needed to be questioned. It’s the first time we’ve been considered actual favourites – bookmakers’ favourites – and it wasn’t due to the game’s internal approach.

“But I didn’t think we handled that tag well enough at all, we were a bit casual and rightly so got punished.” The game’s biggest dispute occurred after Alex Mitchell’s 41st-minute header looked to cross the line.

Posh custodian Alex Bass palmed the ball onto the crossbar, which appeared to bounce down behind him, but the goal was not awarded. Cleverley claims he observed an angle of the incident that indicated it should have been given as a goal: “To me, it looked clearly in,” he said on BBC Devon.

“On the broadcast, I believe it was inconclusive, but from the Mayflower Stand side, I saw an angle where the ball was in.

Unfortunately, there is no goal-line technology in this division, so we will never know. “But that’s not the place of our focus right now, it’s more on our own performance.”

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