Pitman has taken setback in professional manner

People will think there's been histrionics from Brett Pitman after being left out of the team at Blackpool.

After catching up with our captain for a chat at the training ground, I can tell you that's not the case in the slightest. 

I spoke to Brett as the players got ready for Wimbledon, and asked if he was okay.

He said he'd naturally been better, but what came across was how professional he was being about the situation.

Brett knows there's competition for places and when his chance comes he has to take it with both hands.

The one thing I'm sure about is he'll be back scoring goals for us pretty soon.

In Brett's absence, Oli Hawkins took the opportunity to stake a claim impressively at the weekend.

He wants to make the shirt his own and showed his determination to do so with his performance.

In fact, I'd say that was one of Oli's best performances in a Pompey shirt to date.

He's a big, strong lad and dominated their centre-halves with his height and power.

I think I've said before he does need to be a bit tougher,  but he looked that type of player at Bloomfield Road. He was bullying the centre-halves and not the other way around.

There's still work to do with making most of the headers which come his way, but he set up both of Ronan Curtis' goals and overall his performance was very positive. He now needs to maintain those standards.  

It proved a long journey up to Blackpool with all the traffic.

Thankfully, the result and the performance made all of that toil worthwhile.

Yes, there was a bit of fortune with the win against Luton, but apart from the first 20 seconds when they hit the post and, maybe, the last 10 minutes, I felt we dominated.

We controlled the game and bossed the tempo for long periods and that was encouraging.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a vintage display,  but it was a big improvement and showed gradual progression.

It's two wins on the bounce now and you can't ask for more than that.

The manner i n which we conceded the goal from a straight ball down the middle was disappointing.

It made for a nervy finale, where they scored a blatantly offside goal. But overall It was a pleasing day and six points from six obviously breeds confidence.