Danny Cowley's challenge to Portsmouth first-team pretenders after Crawley disappointment and more League Two opposition frustration

The Blues last week slumped to a 3-2 defeat at Newport County to suffer elimination from the Carabao Cup.

On Tuesday night they were held to a 2-2 draw by Crawley in the Papa John’s Trophy, before slipping to a 6-5 penalty shoot-out loss to miss out on a bonus point.

Cowley was furious with the display of referee Sam Allison – and was also unhappy with the performance of a Pompey side containing 10 changes.

Indeed, Ronan Curtis was the sole survivor from Saturday's 1-0 triumph at Port Vale which put the Blues top of League One.

And their head coach has questioned those squad players who again came up short against lower-division opposition.

Cowley told The News: ‘We were disappointed to lose the game on penalties – and last Tuesday also went to a League Two team and lost.

‘We made a lot of changes for both games, but if we want to be a good team and achieve what we want then our squad has to be good enough to be able to come to clubs like Crawley and to win, that’s just the facts.

‘If you want to be a successful team you need depth in your squad. We have some young players who are going to be good players – but they are young players at the moment and still learning.

‘We are Portsmouth. Every time we step onto the grass, it doesn’t matter if it’s training, a friendly, a league game, or the World Cup final, we are Portsmouth, we have to play to win, play with incredible fight and incredible desire.

‘I’m not saying anything I didn’t say to the players, this is the expectation, if you want to be good this is what you have to do.

‘If it’s too much and it’s too intense then, ultimately, you will fall off the back of the treadmill. But we’re not slowing the treadmill down for anyone, we’re improving, we're getting better.

‘And I want everyone to understand that.’

Josh Oluwayemi, Zak Swanson, Haji Mnoga, Jay Mingi, Reeco Hackett, Michael Jacobs and Joe Pigottt were among those recalled at the Broadfield Stadium.

While Denver Hume and Joe Morrell were handed their first starts of the season, having recovered from injury.

Cowley added: ‘On Tuesday night I didn’t like us. I didn’t like us in the first half, I thought we were soft, we didn’t come out with enough ball, as a consequence we couldn’t get any rhythm.

‘You have to win your duels, you have to win your firsts, you have to try to find some rhythm – and I didn’t think we did that in the first half.

‘We were better when the subs came on, they made a good impact. We should have then seen the game out.’