Pompey looking to bounce back v Sunderland
AVRAM Grant has challenged his players to bounce back tonight after their 5-0 mauling by Manchester United.
The Blues boss insists the quality in Portsmouth's side should make them mid-table material rather than Premier League whipping boys.
And he wants his players to prove it by beating declining Sunderland for the second time in a month tonight.
'The most important thing is the stability of the club off and on the pitch and on the pitch, I think we are doing very well," said Grant.
"On the football side, I don't think you see a difference between us and a team in 10th place.
"We play the same football - even better as we showed at Fulham, Manchester City and other games.
"So on the football side - creating chances, the tactics and the spirit is there. But we have less points than these sides.
"A team that's in 10th is not playing better than us, but they are picking up points, so it's time that we did. We need to continue playing good football and we need to pick up some points."
Perhaps the biggest worry for Grant is trying to identify where the goals will come from.
That's something he believes is a confidence issue, rather than a lack of ability but he does admit the Premier League's transfer embargo stopped him bringing in a new striker.
He said: "Sometimes when you don't have confidence, then you don't take your chances.
"We have the players that we have now. They are trying their best, and I'm sure that they will score goals between now and the end of the season.
"But it's not a secret that we were waiting for January, and our list had players who know how to score goals, but the Premier League decided only to lift the embargo three days before and only for loan players.
"This team was built at the last moment at the beginning of the season, and we were waiting for January.
"We didn't have a lot of money, but we had players on our list that could have improved the team, but we were not allowed to do it."
The Portsmouth manager also hinted that tonight's game had been at the forefront of his selection thoughts before Old Trafford, although he stopped short of suggesting he had named a weakened side.
"We were thinking about this game, but we also have had a lot of physical pressure on a very small squad.
"I thought we needed to rotate a little bit to keep the players as fresh as we could.
"We changed the team at Manchester United, but Tuesday will be different again.
"I have heard the term 'must-win game' before, but there are 14 games to go, and in the next four games we need to take as many points as we can because we are playing teams around us."
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Weather for South Shields
Saturday 11 February 2012
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