Paul Cook: We’ve learnt our Morecambe lessons

It’s a return to Fratton Park today for the League Two visit of Accrington Stanley.

The Blues’ last home match produced a 3-3 draw – with Cook’s men storming back from a three-goal deficit to level in stoppage-time against the Shrimps.

The follow-up was a 2-1 victory at much-fancied Luton Town to put themselves in fourth spot.

Now Stanley – the club Cook used to manage – venture to Fratton Park.

And Pompey’s boss believes those Morecambe errors have been addressed.

He said: ‘We are built to be a solid side out of possession and when you look at Morecambe’s goals we were anything but solid.

‘If you think back to Derby, Reading, Plymouth, Dagenham – our good performances – they were built on a solid base.

‘So the first question I asked myself was why weren’t we solid against Morecambe?

‘The half-time team talk was totally about going back to basics and how we play and being solid out of possession.

‘The first thing we had to do against Morecambe was stop them scoring, stop leaking goals and once we had done that we asserted control.

‘What we have got to make sure is we know our weaknesses, certainly against Morecambe we ended up aiding them by trying to get right back into the game.

‘If we fall behind we don’t have to get right back in the game.

‘Everyone wants us to get back into the game within five minutes but we’ve got until 4.45pm – patience is the key.

‘They have learnt massively from Morecambe. I think it is a massive learning curve.

‘I feel we are in a good league position but we are very much learning as we go, that is there for everyone to see.

‘Against Accrington there will be periods where we will dominate, where we should go on and win the game.

But if we make errors like we did against Morecambe, we could be chasing the game and losing the game.

‘Patience is the key.’

Pompey remain unbeaten in League Two after five matches.

And Cook has been encouraged by the form heading into the latest test.

He added: ‘Looking back to the Luton game, we probably played a lot better than anyone thought.

‘That was the surprising thing for myself after watching it back, post-match you always fire from the hip.

‘The penalty was the turning point, then we went a bit sloppy but there were periods in the second half where we were in total control of the game.

‘On match analysis it was a lot better performance than I gave the lads credit for and I was a little bit disappointed we didn’t go on and win the game by more.’