Budgets, the input of Tom and what next for Pilgrims?

IT has been a very busy start to his role as Plymouth Argyle's head of football operations for former Pilgrims midfielder David Fox, who began his new position in May. With the summer transfer window now slammed shut, and the focus back on football, here is part two of Fox's interview with Herald Sport's Argyle reporter Chris Errington about events of recent months.

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THERE has been talk from the club about Argyle having a top six budget for League One. Some fans look at that and say ‘Well, we have not spent very much on players’ What would you say to the fans about Argyle having a top six budget in League One and how well do you feel the money has been spent?

I wouldn't know if it’s a top six budget or not. What I would say is that whatever your budget is you have to outperform it. You have to do better than whatever your budget is. That's just the reality of what it is, and at the minute we are not.

I know what other clubs are spending on players and it’s difficult to compete with some of them, for sure, but that doesn’t mean we have to be where we are.

We have to pick up results with the players we have got, it’s as simple as that.

We have shown in glimpses we are capable of doing that but also we have shown a soft underbelly in terms of the amount of goals we have conceded. You can talk about budgets all day long, you can talk about who has got this money, who has got that money, we can’t look elsewhere.

We have to look at what we have got and we have to bring the most out of what we got, and I don’t feel like we are quite there at the minute in terms of producing what we should do for where we are at.

How much input did Tom Cleverley have into the players that came to the club?

Of course he has an input, it goes without saying. There won't be anyone that he’s not happy with. He has his ideas as well, so we have backed him with some of those he wants, or the type of player he wants for sure. We give him those options to make his team as best he can.