Skipper sets promotion target as Portsmouth vie with Derby County, Bolton Wanderers, Barnsley and Peterborough United for Championship place

Marlon Pack has laid down a two-points-per-game target for Pompey to deliver promotion.

And the skipper has relayed a belief from the Blues dressing room their worst form is firmly behind them.

Pack guided John Mousinho’s side to their fifth win in six against Cambridge United on Tuesday night. That puts Pompey six points clear at the top of League One, though their rivals do have games in hand on them.

Their fine form of late has put Pack’s side ahead of the two points average from every match often associated with promotion - at 2.09 points per game. 

Continuing a mean return of two points from every fixture would see Mousinho’s side hit 95 points - a figure history dictates will certainly seem them going up.

Pack said: ‘We’ve spoken about that (getting the bad run of form out of the way).

‘Listen, we can speak about it - let’s see if the proof is in the pudding.

‘I didn’t think we were too far away anyway, minus Leyton Orient at home and Exeter. Even the ‘Cheltenham one was a bit of a freak result, how we lost that I don’t know in terms of performance.

‘So we’ve spoken about having that period where we lost a few points on other teams and getting back into the mix. Hopefully that period is gone and we then went into that two-points-per-game form we now want.’

Pack argued Pompey’s form over the season warrants their current position clear at the top.

Although often winning matches by the odd goal and claiming victories late, the Buckland boy argues the evidence is those successes were invariably justified by what took place on the pitch.

Pack added: ‘I think we’re where we deserve to be and we’re probably a couple of points short of where we deserved to be. That evens out over the season.

‘I don’t think there’s too many times where we’ve nicked a game. Yes, we’ve scored late but that doesn’t mean a tight game, that’s been pressure and pressure building.

‘That’s not been us scoring winners against the run of play.

‘We’ve actually conceded games this season where we’ve been dominant - Oxford being a prime example of that.

‘So I think that period of a poor run and coming through that now gives us a massive boost.’