Defender Regan Poole believes his Portsmouth side are not far away from competing with the top sides in the Championship.
The south coast team currently sit 14th in the league table on 12 points, a position that is just three points below the top six.
Speaking to BBC Radio Solent, centre-back Poole believes the John Mousinho led team can take the extra step this season and even push for those top six positions.
“I don’t think we’re far away at all (from being able to compete for the play-offs),” Poole said.
“The next block of games before the next international break is massive, the Christmas period is just huge too.
“I think we’re looking up rather than down which is massive. We’re looking at how we can go up the table and if we can attack these upcoming games we can really kick on.
“It’s belief now and we need to believe in ourselves a bit more, we’re in a really good place right now but we do need to start winning games that we should be winning.” (via BBC Radio Solent).
Poole, who has played in all of Portsmouth’s Championship games this season, joined the club from Lincoln City in 2023.
The defender was a huge part of the teams League One title-winning season even though he would miss the end of the campaign through injury. The 27-year-old has made 53 appearances for the Blues, netting four goals.
“When I signed, I wanted to be a part of getting the club back to where it should be,” he added.
“That was a big factor behind me signing, I wanted to get to the Championship one way or another and it felt like it was right for me.
“I believe we’re doing well at the moment but I believe we can go further and have a real good season.”
Difficult Next Five for Portsmouth
Whilst Poole may believe Portsmouth should be looking up the table, the Blues are about to head into a very difficult set of fixtures.
Within their next five games Pompey will face Leicester City, Coventry City, Stoke City, Birmingham City and Wrexham. That’s three of the top six in the space of three weeks. The Championship never get’s easier.
What makes things even harder for Mousinho and Portsmouth, is the sides extensive injury list.
Callum Lang, Conor Shaughnessy, Franco Umeh-Chibueze and Josh Murphy all look likely to miss most of October whilst Nicolas Schmid and Thomas Waddingham aren’t expected back until December at the earliest.
With the big games on the horizon, Mousinho has backed his summer signings to begin making their impact in place of those unavailable.
“We’re still in the infancy of building the squad. We signed a lot of players in the summer and gave five players their full league debuts at Ipswich. That is going to take a bit of time to bed in and get used to.
“Once we get a bit further down the line hopefully it strengthens, that is the players underneath get a bit more league experience, a bit more used to the country and a bit more used to the system.
“Hopefully we develop and go from there, but it does take a bit of time.” (via Portsmouth News).
Time will tell whether Portsmouth can get their signings up and running but despite defeats to Sheffield Wednesday and Ipswich Town before the international break, the mood is good at Pompey.
Even though on paper, the Blues run of games looks incredibly difficult, it does present a chance to test Poole’s comment’s, can Portsmouth really make the step up? Or is it a little too soon?
