Steven Pressley says he is comfortable with the pressure on his and Carlisle United’s shoulders as they bid for victory at Plymouth this weekend.

The Blues need a win to improve their lowly position of 20th in League Two.

Tomorrow's game comes at the end of a week in which director of football David Holdsworth confirmed there was “pressure” on Pressley due to recent results.

That pressure increased since some fans chanted for his head in the home defeat to Crewe last weekend.

Pressley's side since produced a 2-1 victory against League One side Blackpool in the Leasing.com Trophy.

But the manager says even the 4-2 Crewe defeat demonstrated how hard his team were working for the cause.

“Listen, I accept everything that goes with this position,” Pressley said.

“I work tirelessly to try and improve this team, and I’ve got no issues just now.

“It’s interesting. [Last] weekend, our players ran their greatest distance, they had their highest metres per minute, and they had their highest intensity of running.

“Anybody tells me that these players aren’t working hard, they’re delusional. I see the data, I know how hard they’re working.

“We need a couple of things to tidy up on, but make no mistake, if you’re asking me are these players giving it their best, they are.”

Carlisle will have to overturn history in order to prevail at Home Park having taken a solitary point from their last 13 league trips to the Devon club.

They did beat the Pilgrims in the FA Cup in 2015 but their last league win at Argyle's ground came in 1978.

United tomorrow face a home side who were strongly fancied as promotion contenders but are currently 11th, just three points ahead of the Cumbrians.

Pressley admitted Carlisle need to “do better” and said he was “not making excuses” for some recent results.

He added: “It’s the margins. We have to do better on those margins, these key moments, we have to do better. But they’re working their socks off for this team.”

United began their 780-mile round trip today and Pressley admitted the demanding nature of the long journey was a major part of his preparation.

“One of the hardest things about the trip is not [for] the players that will play the games, it’s the other players,” he said.

“With the group that played on Tuesday night you had a situation where they don’t train Wednesday, they do recovery Thursday, Friday is really just be a travel day, then you’re into Saturday.

“If they don’t play Saturday, you can go three or four days [without training or playing a great deal]. The ones that don’t play are a big concentration for us.”

Pressley could be without Harry McKirdy (ankle) tomorrow whilst hoping Jack Bridge, Nathaniel Knight-Percival and Hallam Hope are fit to play after knocks.

United’s boss says several players who impressed in Tuesday’s Trophy win have given him food for thought.

“That’s what I want – I want a situation where I’m having to make tough decisions, that’s part and parcel of being a manager, part and parcel of being a successful club, when people all want the jersey,” he said.

“We brought in quite a lot of development players in the summer that I see great improvements in, and now they’re pushing for places. It’s encouraging.”

Plymouth are without dangerman Danny Mayor, who is suspended. Conor Grant, Ryan Taylor and Dom Telford are injured but Byron Moore could return.

Pressley expects a difficult encounter against Ryan Lowe’s side.

“I watched their game from last weekend against Swindon and they played some great stuff,” United’s manager said.

“They’ve got some real matchwinners in their team and they are a team that’s probably expected to be challenging in the top three positions.

“It’s another really tough game for us on our travels. But on our travels recently I think we’ve performed well. We gave one of our best performances of the season down at Newport.

“It’ll take a performance like that again to get the right result.

“I’ve got great confidence in us and if we go about the game in the way we did [on Tuesday] I think we’ve got a real chance.”