Key Portsmouth v Sunderland game in League One promotion race is Blues sell-out

The club have today revealed all home tickets for the game at Fratton Park on Saturday, February 1, have sold out

It’s the seventh time this season that Blues supporters have snapped up their full allocation of tickets for home games, with the 18,419 fans who attended the Boxing Day win against Wycombe representing Pompey’s biggest PO4 crowd of the season.

The match against Sunderland is significant given both sides’ standing in the third tier.

The fact they currently sit neck-and-neck in the race for promotion is also key, although both teams would no doubt want to be higher up the table as they occupy ninth and 10th places respectively on 35 points – one point adrift of the play-off spots but with a game in hand on sixth-placed Peterborough.

Meanwhile, the rivalry was stoked up last season as both club’s ultimately ended up missing out on promotion to the Championship.

They met four times in that battle to go up, with Pompey winning the opening stalment 3-1 at Fratton Park, before drawing 1-1 at the Stadium of Light.

However, the Black Cats got one over Kenny Jackett’s side by coming out on top in their two-legged play-off semi-final, securing a 1-0 aggregate win before losing out against Charlton in the final.

The Blues, though, won silverware at Sunderland’s expense last season.

They lifted the Checkatrade Trophy in front of a 85,021 Wembley crowd, thanks to a 5-4 penalty shootout win after the game finished 2-2 after extra-time.

This term, the Black Cats earned a 2-1 win over their rivals at the Stadium of Light, with goals from Jordan Willis and Chris Maquire cancelling out Marcus Harness’ opener.