Both teams lacked quality in the final third, admits Pilgrims boss

Plymouth boss Steven Schumacher said the battle for a play-off place will go right down to the wire after watchinghissidedraw0-0withSunderland on Easter Monday.

Argyle were arguably the better side in the first half after a bright start from the visitors,withRyanHardiemissing the best chance five minutes from the break.

Schumacher conceded that the Black Cats had improvedafterthebreakandsaid bothteamslackedabitofquality in the final third.

His side face a daunting final two fixtures, travelling to Wigan Athletic on Saturday before MK Dons visit Home Park.

"I think it has been clear for a while it's going to go to the wire," Schumacher said.

"Everybody in the top seven, eight positions in the leagueareallplayingwell.Ifelt it was a good game, especially first half. The quality was reallyhigh,wepassedtheballwell.

"We created some good chances and were maybe unfortunate on a couple of occasions not to get the winner, and also a little bit careless on a couple of occasions as well.

"If the pass was a little bit better we might have been in and created a better chance forustoscore.Thesecondhalf was closer, a bit more scrappy, but it's another point in the right direction."

The Plymouth boss felt that in the end the 0-0 scorelinewasafairreflectionofthe contest. "I think both teams wanted to try and win," he said. "It wasn't a negative game,itwasn'ttwoteamswho sat back.

"That's not what the two sides are all about. Sunderland have been playing some real good football of late and have been going really well since Alex Neil took charge, and we are the way we are.

"We like to play attacking football so it was always going to be that type of game. I just felt that both teams on the last pass a couple of times just didn't have enough quality to create the goalscoring opportunitythatwasneeded.

"It was a close game, maybe we just edged the first half. The first 45 minutes I felt we were really good.

"The second half we just startedalittlebitslowandwe gave the ball away a few times early on, unnecessarily with sloppy passes, and gave them a little bit of the initiative.

"ButthenIthinkasthehalf wentonwecameintoitagain, we grew into the game and it could have gone either way at the end.”