The 20-year-old, who made a substitute appearance at Blackpool for Argyle, marked his first appearance at Home Park with the 16th-minute winner.

Martin swooped at the near post to convert a right wing cross from Sylvan Ebanks-Blake after a superb defence-splitting run from Hungary international Peter Halmosi.

Holloway said: "It needed to be a good performance because everyone was saying what a tough game this was going to be and you only had to look at their bench to see how tough it was.

"I felt we deserved it, it got a bit scrappy second half, they came back into it but you would expect that from Iain Dowie's team.

"I don't think he would have been too happy at half-time to be honest with you. I thought we could have had one or two more goals. It was probably the nicest first-half performance I have seen from us all season."

Holloway said: "It's always nice for the new boy on the block to get off to a decent start.

"I think Lee's proved why we tried to get him - and I'm delighted he joined us."

Dowie was disappointed with his side's start, although they did improve in the second half.

The Sky Blues boss admitted: "I thought that we were poor, to be fair in the second half we pressed it a bit.

"But first half we did not get any momentum going and we gave away a soft goal. We did not play with enough, tempo, enough drive, enough desire - and that's the only time I have said that this year. We had a poor day at the office.

"I won't question the lads because they have been fantastic for me but we have had a poor day at the office.

"Outside the goal - which was a soft, soft goal - he only had to tip one off the bar and make a good save in the second half."

City keeper Andy Marshall needed to be at full stretch to prevent Plymouth going 2-0 up after Martin put in Ebanks-Blake in the second half.

Argyle's top scorer sent a first-time effort towards goal, where Marshall stretched out a leg to put the ball to safety.

Dowie opted to introduce target man Dele Adebola at the start of the second half and later partnered him with substitute Kevin Kyle, who came close to scoring late on.

Meanwhile David Norris, Martin, Halmosi and Ebanks-Blake all went close with first-half efforts.