Bignot: We lost to the best team in League Two

Pompey produced a rampant performance at Fratton Park and put four past the Lincolnshire outfit, leaving them with a miserable journey back.

First-half goals from Kyle Bennett, Danny Rose and Carl Baker and a strike from Kal Nasmith shortly after the break made it a night to forget for the Mariners.

Grimsby made a bright start when the game was at a deadlock with Zak Mills rattling the post from 30 yards and Akwasi Asante forcing a decent save out of David Forde.

But Bignot said his side were second best on the night and Pompey deserved their win.

He told Grimsby’s club website: ‘It’s a difficult evening for the boys.

‘For me, we’ve played the best team in the league in Portsmouth.

‘I thought we started the game really well.

‘We had a couple of corners, hit the post, Fordey has pulled off a great save from Akwasi and we had the momentum so I was pleased with how we started and then they got their fortune with the looped shot that went in.

‘But I just thought our defenders were out on their legs tonight to be fair.

‘They’ll bounce back Saturday, there’s no doubt about that but when you come to Fratton Park you need your defenders to come and be counted and their attacking line got the better of our defensive line tonight.’

‘I’m looking at Portsmouth and we can’t gauge them because for me, they’ll go up automatically and with the crowd, the ground, the history and everything about the club, they don’t deserve to be in this league.

‘That’s where we want to get to one day and we’d love to get into the play-offs but we’re seven points off it now.’

Bignot made five changes from his side who beat Leyton Orient 3-0 on Saturday but believed his team was mentally tired going into Tuesday night’s fixture.

He added: ‘We were mentally tired.

‘We’ve been on the road but there are no regrets with what we’ve done. I made changes on Saturday and hindsight is a wonderful thing.

‘People say that the two deflected shots are unfortunate but we could have got out there earlier and blocked the shot, and then with the third goal, we’ve dropped off and we’ve shown them and told them about it.

‘It was a deep free-kick put down the sides and we were so easily beaten, but that’s just mental tiredness.’