Black, Blue & Green

The Argyle squad have this week been training at the city's Royal Marine barracks in a bid to ease the manager's concerns over fitness and team morale. After a week's intensive workout, Pulis took the squad to be beaten into shape by local boxer Scott Dann. The British Middleweight champion led a tough training schedule before members of the squad faced each other in the ring. Coming out black and blue, battle wounds a plenty, Pulis insisted that is was all good. "They punched hell out of each other and cuddled each other afterwards", the gaffer stated, "They really got into it, it was good fun".

Portsmouth were due to visit Home Park for friendly at the end of the week behind closed doors. Neither side are heavily bogged down with players away on International duty. However, just like Argyle's home game against Leciester last week, the fixture fell victim to bad weather. Head groundsman Colin Wheatcroft advised that the game be called off for the sake of preserving the club's highly-regarded playing surface. Trialists Christopher Katongo of Zambia and French full-back Gael Suares have been with the squad all week and will be most disappointed with the news. The pair are back in Plymouth after trails last month of which nothing materialised. A second "highly-recommended" Frenchman is also on trial, but has yet to be named by anyone at the club.

The squad have been minus Akos Buzsaky and Tony Capaldi this week who are away with the Hungary and Northern Ireland squads respectively. Also on duty with Lawrie Sanchez's side is Linfield hitman Peter Thompson, a player that Plymouth have been heavily linked with in the past seven days.  No club official has commented specifically on the player, but manager Tony Pulis was quick to dismiss specualtion over a move for Bristol City forward Marcus Stewart. This has also been echoed by senior bodies at Ashton Gate.