They have beaten Birmingham home and away. They've not managed to do that to anyone else except Barnsley and the only other chance they'll get is at Charlton in a couple of weeks time (a team they beat 2-0 at Bloomfield Road before Christmas).

The reason I mention it is because in the past fortnight the Seasiders have squandered two glorious opportunities to claim another couple of doubles.

Plymouth, like Southampton before them, had been beaten away.

But on home turf (turf that increasingly resembles, in terms of appearance, the Somme), they have stuttered badly.

Held by the Saints, it was even worse against the Pilgrims – a dismal performance made a whole lot worse by conceding a late goal.

These last two home games have been emotional. First Alan Suddick, then Hughie Kelly lost their lives. The former Pool stars were commemorated before each game. In theory that should have made today's crop of players strive to turn in the type of performance befitting of those legends of the club.

They haven't. Instead we've had two poor performances, well one and a half – the first half against Southampton, in fairness, was OK.

What went wrong against Plymouth? It would be easier to ask what went right. The answer is very little.

No one can look back at their performances and claim to be wholly satisfied. The defence was OK, but before Plymouth's goal (coming, depressingly, from a set piece), the visitor's had a clear cut chance to score and only a wayward header from the unmarked Karl Duguid spared them.

In midfield Charlie Adam (despite a couple of clever first half passes) and Keith Southern didn't get going, and up front DJ Campbell and Lee Hughes didn't click – though given Campbell's injury they didn't have much time to form any kind of meaningful partnership.

Brett Ormerod battled manfully and I thought he was best man in tangerine. He made some clever contributions from the right wing and was even better when he went down the centre in the second period. His cross from Ben Burgess towards the end was delightful, the best centre of the day.

And that said it all really – the delivery from the flanks was awful. As much as David Vaughan impresses with his workrate, he has to start delivering crosses into the box and give the strikers something to work with.

A pity Burgess couldn't quite reach the afore-mentioned cross from Ormerod. What a lovely fairytale return it would have been for a man who has spent the last 10 weeks recovering from knee surgery.

Alas it didn't quite happen and less than a minute later Plymouth scored the goal which secured them three huge points.

They deserved it. For Pool it's back to the drawing board.

The build-up starts here, read The Gazette all this week as we look forward to Saturday's huge trip to Deepdale.