Gaffer: Portsmouth fans outstanding as usual but don’t get carried away by Cardiff victory… I’ll take the play-offs this season

What was your take on the win?

The tempo moving forward was very good, a really solid first half and then we just took our chances in the second.

It was obviously a weakened Cardiff side but it wasn’t our first choice 11 either, to go there and do that shows we’ve got a bit of depth I was a bit dubious at the end of the first half, especially after Lincoln I thought it would be the same again but then we found a way of ripping them apart.

Going forward we found that bit of ruthlessness, none of the goals were particularly outstanding. We took our chances and they didn’t and that was the difference.

The amount of blocks we put in it felt like everytime Cardiff had a shot from outside the box someone got their body in front of it.

We took our chances but we did really well to stop them taking theirs. Put those things together for the rest of the season and we should be alright.

We probably didn’t outnumber the Cardiff fans but we couldn’t have been far off. The Pompey fans were outstanding as always and over the past few years our travelling fans have always turned up.

It’s got to the point now that generally amongst fans, away days are considered better than the home games and on Tuesday they were brilliant as usual.

Who was your man of the match?

I’m half tempted to give it to Haji Mnoga. He’s only just become an actual centre-half, he’s been shunted around at wing-back and at right-back and obviously had a change in defensive partners at half-time.

He looked good on the ball, got a number of blocks in and looked really comfortable.

Curtis didn’t look great first half but then got an assist and a goal in the second half. Scarlett looked good in parts but didn’t really create much, Pigott also looked good.

We took a lot of those players off early in the second half so for a 90 minute performance, Mnoga deserves it.

Do you think this side is capable of pushing for promotion?

I’ve always been a bit sceptical about promotion this year because we’ve made a lot of changes again.

I think we still lack a winger. Dale, it was his first game but I think there needs to be another option out there to really take us up a level.

If Dale gets injured or Scarlett gets injured, then we’re back to being quite slow and predictable.

I don’t think we’re far off but the problem is the quality of the teams in the division just gets higher and higher every year. I think a play-off spot for us would be good this season.

Josh Griffiths - 7

Zak Swanson - 7

Haji Mnoga - 8

Sean Raggett - 8

Joe Rafferty - 7

Owen Dale - 6

Jay Mingi - 8

Marlon Pack - 6

Ronan Curtis - 7

Dane Scarlett - 7

Joe Pigott - 8