Plymouth Argyle 0 Sunderland 0: Story of the day as Alex Neil's side move back into the League One play-off places

Plymouth are expecting another sell-out crowd at Home Park this afternoon, with 1,500 fans set to make the trip from Sunderland.

Here’s what Argyle boss Steven Schumacher had to say when asked about the home support:

“We have been selling out every week because they can see it’s exciting and it’s what they want to be part of.

“We are going to need them because after a bad performance that energy and that atmosphere we can create at Home Park will give the lads an extra little five per cent.

“If we can get a little bit more in our legs from now until Monday, and get them behind us, then we will be a good game for Sunderland.”

Plymouth have won just one of their last four games following Friday’s 2-0 defeat at Wycombe.

To find out more we caught up with Argyle reporter Chris Errington from The Plymouth Herald to get the inside track on Steven Schumacher’s side.

Here’s what he said when asked about The Pilgrims’ recent performances:

“Both of those games were away from Home Park - a 0-0 draw at Burton, who held Wigan to the same scoreline three nights later, and a 2-0 defeat at Wycombe, who are on a good run of form at the moment. Argyle struggled to create chances in those matches and clearly that needs to improve.

“However, in their last six games at Home Park they have a 100 per cent record so their confidence should be high playing in front of the Green Army again.”

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Here’s what the Sunderland boss has had to say after that late winner against Shrewsbury on Friday.

“The pleasing thing I’ll take from the Shrewsbury game is that we should be going into the Plymouth match on edge, knowing that we can’t drop our standards and that if we have a lapse or we take our foot off the gas, then what happened on Friday is likely to happen again.

“That’s the pleasing thing I take down to Plymouth. We got the three points (against Shrewsbury), but we still got a wee jag in terms of knowing, ‘Right, we can’t perform like we did in that spell’.

“That’s the one benefit I’ll take from that period. We understand the importance of Plymouth, but the last thing I would like to see is us going down there over-confident, thinking we’ll just go down and play, and then we come up short. I don’t expect that to be the case now.”

We’ll start with the Sunderland team news.

Alex Pritchard could be available again after missing the side’s last two matches with a minor calf injury.

Goalkeeper Thorben Hoffmann and Callum Doyle both missed Friday’s win over Shrewsbury due to illness, while Leon Dajaku has also been unwell and returned to Germany last week.

Hello and welcome to our SAFC live blog.

The Black Cats have four league games remaining, starting with today’s big match against play-off rivals Plymouth.

Alex Neil’s side have slipped out of the play-off places on goal difference but are just two points behind today’s opponents having played a game less.

We’ll have all the build-up ahead of the match at Home Park, as well as in-game analysis and post-match reaction.

Stick around and refresh the page for live updates throughout the day.