Former Celtic captain Scott Brown’s delight as Portsmouth stopped by ‘exceptional’ Fleetwood

Scott Brown believed his side were ‘exceptional’ as they came away from Fratton Park with a hard-fought point.
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Despite falling behind to an early strike from Josh Koroma, the Cod Army replied instantly through Carlos Mendes Gomes, who found himself with space in the penalty area to level the contest after 15 minutes.

While attempts on goal were few and far between for the Lancashire outfit, the visitors could’ve taken the lead in the second half when a period of dominance saw Shaun Rooney have an attempt well-saved by Josh Griffiths on the near post.

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Yet, it was Danny Cowley’s men who dominated the proceedings but were unable to break down the resilient Town defences.

Brown was proud of his side’s display and was pleased that they were able to graft out a well-earned point at Fratton Park.

He told the official Fleetwood website: ‘Coming back shows the lads’ mentality more than anything.

‘For us to go 1-0 down after six or seven minutes, it shows their willingness and desire to get back into it like they did.

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‘They put their heads and bodies on the line and it’s those last-ditch contacts that earned up the clean sheet.

Scott Brown was proud of his side's 'exceptional' performance against Pompey.Scott Brown was proud of his side's 'exceptional' performance against Pompey.
Scott Brown was proud of his side's 'exceptional' performance against Pompey.

‘A lot of teams could come here and go one-nil down early on and by half-time, they would find themselves already out the game so fair play to the lads.

‘They all dug deep as coming to a stadium and playing in front of crowds like this will always be hard – they will always have momentum now and then. It’s about how you deal with that, and I thought our lads were exceptional at that.’

In the build-up to Pompey’s goal, goalkeeper Jay Lynch’s poor clearance was fired straight to Marlon Pack in Fleetwood’s half.

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Brown takes full responsibility for the goal admitting those mistakes are part and parcel of the way they want to play.

He added: ‘For the goal, that’s probably on us, we want to play out from the back and put teams under pressure so maybe we should have gone longer in the first 10 minutes.

‘We will learn from these mistakes and move forwards; It’s been a hard week because of the travel and the fact that we had another game three days ago, so we haven’t really been able to train much and get things organised.

‘The lads have dealt with that well - it’s been hard, but we’ve dealt with those situations well so far.’