Plymouth Argyle boss refused to blame a controversial decision for a defeat at the hands of Peterborough United

Alex Mitchell looked to have drawn the home side level just before the break with a header that appeared to have crossed the goalline before Posh goalkeeper Alex Bass scooped it away, but no goal was awarded. Last season Plymouth were in the Championship when goal-line technology was available.

Cleverley was frustrated by the incident, but he was more concerned with his young side’s weak mentality as they went down to a Posh side who started the day bottom of the table.

Cleverley told the Plymouth Herald: “I saw a conclusive angle on the touchline where the ball was over the line. I know emotions are really high when that's happening, but to me, it looked clearly in.

"Unfortunately there’s no goal-line technology in this division so we will never know, but our focus right now has to be on our own performance.

"We lacked a bit of tempo, we didn't test their box enough and we didn't manage game well enough in the last half-an-hour when we needed to be a bit more direct.

"They are camped in a little bit and football is not perfect so we are not going to play nice, pretty stuff all the time. Sometimes it will be about testing their box enough times until something breaks through and I don't think we did that today. The mindset and approach has to be questioned.

"It's the first time this season we have been real bookmakers' favourites to win a game and we didn’t handle it well. We were a bit casual and, rightly so, got punished.

"A lot of our players are not used to winning, or being expected to win and they are not used to playing for a club with these pressures. These things are all heightened when you concede the first goal and confidence gets knocked.

"Listen, we are an incredibly young team. We are frustrated and disappointed, and there’s also a bit of anger, but I wouldn't say we feel hard done by. We must be so much better and that starts with our mentality and being ruthless.

"To be successful in any division in football you have to have a good mentality, to react to setbacks, but more importantly for me, you have to know how to deal with winning. Keep your feet on the ground, stick to the same processes, work-rate all that, and I'm afraid that we came away from it a little bit today.

"This should be a real warning to everybody that we can't lower our levels at all. It’s a big learning curve for us today. We played a team that have been conceding goals from crosses this season and we wanted to exploit that, but it didn’t happen for us.”

Plymouth, who had beaten promotion fancies Stockport County and Luton Town in their previous two matches, are 17th, but just two points ahead of next-to-bottom Posh.