Portsmouth out to hit 23-year Championship landmark against high-flying Stoke City
John Mousinho’s men can equal a Championship run going back to 2003 in the Fratton Park lunchtime kick-off.
A Championship landmark stretching back to Harry Redknapp’s Division One heroes is the prize for avoiding defeat against Stoke City tomorrow.
The Blues can put themselves back into the play-off places for a couple of hours at least, in their lunchtime kick-off against Mark Robins’ side at Fratton Park.
Pompey out to hit 23-year Championship unbeaten run against Stoke City
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And making it seven second-tier games unbeaten against the Potters will also be a 23-year high at that level for the club.
The run spans four wins and two draws so far, off the back of the south-coast derby defeat at Southampton last month.
A seventh match will equal their longest run without a reverse since the 2002-03 season, when Redknapp’s superb champions stormed to the Division One title.
Including that season, Pompey have competed in six Championship campaigns since with two other seven-game spells without a reverse.
Both of those arrived in the 2010-11 season under Steve Cotterill, with the first running from the 6-1 thrashing of Leicester City in September 2010 to the 2-1 home win over Nottingham Forest the following month.
Pompey repeated the trick the following February, beginning with a 1-1 draw with Derby County and six straight wins concluding with a 1-0 success over Sheffield United in March 2011.
Mousinho’s side have put five-game unbeaten runs together at the end of each Championship season, with three spells of four matches without defeat.
The Pompey boss oversaw a club-record 27 game unbeaten league run straddling the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons, with a 17-game spell without a loss delivering the League One title.
Mousinho admitted a potential landmark is a nice reward but not a particular motivation, with the Southampton defeat a key moment in the run.
He said: ‘The important thing for me was the response to losing that game to Southampton.
‘I spoke to the lads immediately in the dressing room after that game, I told them there’s no time to feel sorry for ourselves or rest with the game on Wednesday night and the game on Saturday.
‘Then there was the game at Wolves the following Tuesday and we’ve been able to keep going since then.
‘So far I’ve been really pleased with the response from a mentality standpoint.
‘We’re now in a position where we’ve got the opportunity to go into the international break and finish this period in a really positive way That’s what we’ve got to focus on.
‘All of the things that come as consequence of winning games, drawing games and being on an unbeaten run that’s nice.
‘But that’s really not what we’re focussing, we’re just focussing on winning games.’