Kenny Jackett admits Portsmouth pressure after shocking 4-1 defeat at relegation-haunted Northampton

The abject Blues fell 4-0 behind after 43 minutes as the struggling Cobbers ran riot.

Ryan Watson (two), Fraser Horsfall and Sam Hoskins cut apart a ragged defensive back line – and there could have been plenty more.

After the match, which finished 4-1, the Fratton faithful were calling for the head of manager Jackett.

A run of four points from a possible 18 has now left the Blues in sixth and facing a battle to even stay in the play-offs.

Jackett told The News: ‘There’s obviously pressure on every manager and certainly if you are 4-0 down at half-time. Obviously that comes with the territory.

‘We need to do better than we did today, we have to value working off a solid base and not giving poor goals away, that’s the important thing.

‘The players are a good group, though, they want to do well. Some miscalculations and mistakes today gave us a mountain to climb and unfortunately that resulted in the second half, where we were playing for our pride and couldn’t get any points from the game.

‘Definitely I can turn it around. We have to keep working hard, we have to identify what we need to do to get things right.

‘Maybe at the right time get one or two players back, but certainly in terms of the capability of the players, I think it is there to go on a good run.

‘Similarly, though, we need to do better and identify what wins games. When you give goals away like we did in the first half, it’s very difficult to win games.

‘Of course it can be changed. You have got to get things right.

‘It’s one thing talking about it and another thing doing it and it’s our aim to work hard to get the confidence back in the players and for them to roll their sleeves up and earn it.

‘There’s a few at the moment who are down on their confidence.

Meanwhile, Jackett was also asked about the continued backing of Pompey owner’s Tornante.

The 59-year-old’s contract is up in the summer.

He added: ‘We’ll see, obviously it’s a disappointing result. There’s a big batch of games coming up, but my focus always is accurate assessment of the day, work hard to put it right and then look quickly towards the future.

‘You have to do everything you can to organise the next session and, most importantly, the game plan for the next match.’

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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