Portsmouth boss’ message to Bolton Wanderers, Derby County, Barnsley, Peterborough United & Co as flying form turns up heat on promotion rivals

Pompey are enjoying turning up the promotion pressure on their rivals.

And John Mousinho told how his players are revelling in the heat of the race to reach the Championship themselves, after putting Reading to the sword.

The Blues swatted aside the upwardly mobile Royals, with an impressive 4-1 Fratton Park success in front of the biggest Fratton Park crowd in 15 years on Saturday.

The result means the gap to Bolton in third is now nine points, although they have three games in hand after they drew at home with Charlton.

Meanwhile, Peterborough’s struggles continued as they lost their fourth game on the spin at Blackpool.

Mousinho refused to take the cliched route of saying he’s not looking at rivals, as the intensity is ramped up in the promotion race.

When asked if he looks at the league table, Mousinho said: ‘Yes, yes if people say they don’t they’re lying!

‘We obviously look at the table afterwards, but the main focus for us was making sure we won the game and try as put as much pressure as we can on the other sides.

‘There’s nothing we can do about that, but we look at it and if other sides drops points that’s great for us.

‘We just have to look at ourselves, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t look at the league table - one of the first things we do after a game is ask how other results have gone.’

When discussing the promotion race, Mousinho isn’t interested in trying to take the pressure off his players and load it on to their rivals. He knows expectation still rests on his men - something they are embracing at a key moment in the campaign.

When asked if Pompey’s form puts pressure on rivals, Mousinho added: ‘Quite possibly, but it doesn’t make a huge amount of difference to us, because the pressure here is immense at the moment.

‘We embrace that and we want the lads to enjoy it. 

‘I think pressure can be very enjoyable, you can choose very different ways to go about it.

‘But if you want to play for Portsmouth, regardless of what league you’re in or the stage of the season the pressure’s there - we saw that the hard way last season.

‘The pressure is there to win games, so we need to keep doing it and enjoy it. It’s the only way to do it.’