Portsmouth boss addresses Tranmere's pitch and how his side plan to overcome difficulties it may present

The Blues travel to Merseyside today (3pm) aiming for a post-war club-record ninth successive win.

The in-form visitors are heavy favourites to beat the League One strugglers, but will have to overcome the well-publicised problem that’s burdened Rovers’ season so far.

Tranmere have been forced to postpone two games because of a waterlogged surface, causing large sections of the playing surface to be covered by sand.

Jackett stressed it's a factor Pompey haven’t been focusing on, however.

And he’s confident his troops will adjust to the conditions if required.

The Blues boss said: ‘There’s been a lot of talk about it (the pitch). It's not something we're going to discuss and can't be an excuse as it’ll be the same for both teams.

‘If we need to, we will adjust and adapt to make sure we overcome it.

‘When we see it, the players will judge it themselves because they're the ones doing the warm up. Obviously, at 2:45pm-2:50pm we may say X, Y and Z or we may not. To make sure these things aren't excuses.

If you keep talking about it and bringing it up then people focus on the wrong things. It's our performance and our attitude that we can affect.

‘If you're going to bring attention to things, you have to make sure they're in a positive sense.

‘Us, inside the football industry, we're pretty good at finding excuses. You have to try to cut those down and then work hard at what you can affect as well.

‘We can't affect the surface we're going to play on – whether that's Tranmere or Coventry at Birmingham's ground next Tuesday, which is obviously a Championship ground.

‘So it is about our approach and our preparation.’