Miron Muslic thought Plymouth Argyle's players 'lacked physicality' and did not win their duels as they lost 1-0 to Queens Park Rangers at Home Park.

Muslic took charge of Argyle for just the second time after being appointed as head coach and the problems which have led to them being bottom of the Championship were again all too obvious. As a team they were not strong enough defensively and did not carry anywhere near the attacking threat they needed.

However, the Pilgrims' boss excused defender Julio Pleguezuelo from his criticism because of the way he 'tried to compete every single duel' against QPR's powerful Swiss striker Michael Frey.

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Pleguezuelo was one of only two fit defenders available to Muslic along with Victor Palsson because of injuries Brendan Galloway and Kornel Szucs, as well as the £1.5 million transfer of Lewis Gibson to Preston North End earlier this month, so Muslic had little option but to change to a 4-2-3-1 formation against QPR.

It meant Morgan Whittaker, Michael Baidoo, Rami Al Hajj and Ryan Hardie all started the game but between them the quartet did not provide any attacking spark.

Muslic said: "Very disappointed because we just simply lacked the desire to win duels. These are basics. We had some injury problems over the last couple of days, we also had to adapt the system because you cannot play with a back three if you only have two centre-backs, but I don't think this was the problem.

"We just lacked the physicality, and the difference between our physicality and the physicality of QPR was just immense in everything; defensively, offensively, in the set plays, on the throw-ins, and there we struggled.

"The most important thing today was the willingness to win the duels because it's not always about the physicality and the height. If I for example can mention one player - Julio, Pleggy - he tried, he tried.

"He's not a one (metre) 95 (centimetre) centre-back but he tried to compete every single duel against Frey, a very big and strong target player, but we lacked that desire on other positions, just to win duels.

"If you can't win duels you don't have a chance, and I think we have been far away from deserving even a point. That's the reality and from there on we have to move, but first of all we have to admit that was not enough today, not enough.

"We need to be more competitive, we need to play with more conviction in the duels and we need to get also more physical. This is a very physical league and if we don't do this we will struggle. It was a very frustrating performance, I agree. We are now on the ground but that's also the perfect opportunity to get up and you try again.

"You can get on the ground, you can also have performances like this. We all hate it because we love this game, we don't like to lose, but the way we lost today was not good so we have to change this ASAP."

Muslic added: "A lot of things have been negative today. There are also so many things we have to improve, it's obvious. I'm not long here, I'm just here for a week and I don't like excuses at all.

"I like to find solutions, I like to face the reality, and the reality is tough. The reality is we are struggling defensively, we are struggling offensively, but especially at home games we have to be more dangerous.

"We had today with Morgan, with Baidoo, with Al Hajj and also with Hardie four offensive players on the pitch but we just didn't manage to have those moments.

"It was sloppy. I know in football you have sometimes games like this but we have to find solutions and also to get up as quickly as possible."

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