Pompey skipper: Crewe loss made me want to fight the world

MICHAEL DOYLE has admitted he wanted to '˜fight the world' after Pompey's set-back to Crewe.
Michael Doyle celebrates scoring in Pompey's win against Colchester. Picture: Joe PeplerMichael Doyle celebrates scoring in Pompey's win against Colchester. Picture: Joe Pepler
Michael Doyle celebrates scoring in Pompey's win against Colchester. Picture: Joe Pepler

Now he believes that season low can be reflected on as the turning point in the Blues’ promotion aspirations.

It has been five wins from six fixtures since last month’s Fratton Park debacle against the Railwaymen.

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Such has been Pompey’s outstanding response, they currently stand six points clear in the automatic promotion spots with six matches remaining.

Paul Cook’s men can strengthen that hold when they host struggling Yeovil tomorrow.

And Doyle surveys a potential season-defining moment which left the players – as well as the supporters – reeling.

He said: ‘When we lost that game, it was a low for me, in the sense of I had never really seen the fans, and everybody around the ground, like that.

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‘It was really negative – and rightly so – but I can only speak for myself and it hurt.

‘You are angry. Everybody is different.

‘Professionally we all get angry, but you kind of want to take everybody out and want to fight the world.

‘You can’t do that, though, you just have to use it and bottle it up.

‘After the game, as disappointing as it was, we still knew that if we won at Crawley we would move into third – and we managed it.

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‘Crewe could possibly be the turning point, but that’s what happens in football.

‘You’ve seen at clubs where you have a really bad defeat and the knives are out and fans are questioning.

‘You can go one way or the other, fortunately for us we’ve managed to go the right way.

‘The players here have a great attitude, they want to do well, they are all working hard to get into the team. That has been the case since I came to the club.

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‘The attitude of the players has always been right. I would be one of the first to say if people’s attitude wasn’t professional and they weren’t living their lives right.

‘But you cannot really question that with these lads, they do everything right.

‘They want to get better and take the club upwards.

‘It’s great to see the rewards at the minute – but we are still a long way from getting there and things can easily change in football.’

Yeovil sit 19th in League Two, 10 points ahead of the relegation zone.

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And Pompey’s skipper has stressed high performance levels must be maintained.

Doyle added: ‘We’ve had season of probably letting ourselves down at times. There’s Notts County, Stevenage, Accrington away – the list goes on.

‘We are not getting beat by better teams, it’s just us not performing – not being disrespectful to anybody.

‘When we’ve lost games it’s because we haven’t performed well. So all credit to the lads for digging in and we’re now seeing players playing with confidence and belief.’