Jackett: Portsmouth players must stay humble

A stunning 3-1 triumph over promotion rivals Sunderland has taken the Blues to 51 points at the season's half-way mark.

The gap ahead of Luton remains four points, with the in-form Hatters maintaining the pace following a seventh-straight league victory.

Perhaps crucially, Pompey now stand eight points clear of Sunderland, albeit Jack Ross' men possessing two matches in hand.

Regardless, Jackett's troops retain pole position as the season enters its second half.

And the three-time promotion winner has urged Pompey not to become distracted by confidence or looking too far ahead.

He said: '˜Credit to the players for their efforts so far, I think they deserve recognition for their consistency and their preparation.

'˜As everybody will tell you, you cannot get promoted at Christmas, but you give yourself a chance. Obviously, with our points total, we have a good chance which we want to work hard on and capitalise.

'˜I realise there has been a lot of hard work and it hasn't been easy to get where we are so far.

'˜As long as we recognise that and stay humble and hard working then we'll be fine.

'˜What's next for us is Gillingham on Boxing Day and that's it. We don't look at the overall picture too much, just concentrate on individual games. It's a cliche, it's a boring one, but it's very, very true.

'˜Concentrate on Gillingham, make sure the travel arrangements are okay for Fleetwood and keep analysing our performance honestly '“ but also encourage the players.

'˜Congratulations to the players, they have been dedicated in their preparation, which you want to see.'

The scoreline was goalless at half-time following a tight opening period of few chances.

Yet minutes after the restart, Glenn Loovens was dismissed after clattering into Oli Hawkins when the striker was clean through.

That paved the way for Gareth Evans to net from the penalty spot, with Ronan Curtis and Ben Thompson also registering, while Like O'Nien pulled one back.

It was a powerful second-half display from Jackett's men, who also had a Brett Pitman goal disallowed for off-side.

In the process, the Black Cats suffered only their second league display of the campaign.

Jackett added: '˜It was quite a low-key first half where both sides cancelled each other out.

'˜We talked at half-time about making sure we didn't leave anything out there '“ in terms of the players they did that in the second half.

'˜I am pleased to say we capitalised on the fact it was 11 v 10. It's very easy to get nervous and edgy, we didn't sit back, kept going for more goals and three were obviously enough for us.

'˜We had other chances in a strong performance in the second half which I was quite pleased with, we didn't back off.'