Skipper Gareth Evans calls on Portsmouth to confront the glaring faults which led to nine-man Coventry draw pain

The Blues skipper feels his side have to confront the problems which caused them to throw away victory to the nine-man Sky Blues.

Kenny Jackett’s side somehow gave up a 3-1 advantage to a side who finished the game with nine men on a bleak Fratton Park evening.

Pompey looked shaky at the back throughout, but turned the game on its head after falling behind in the third minute.

Evans’ side now have a weekend without a game and the challenge will be to not let the pain of such a damaging outcome poison his team’s season.

He said: ‘When we calm down we have to analyse this and where we’ve thrown it away.

‘It’s hard to say what went wrong.

‘We’re going to have to look back at the video and sit through it.

‘It’s really frustrating. It will put a dampener on the rest of the week.

‘It’s probably worse not having a game to get it out of the system.

‘We’ve got to wait over the weekend when we’d prefer to play and put things right.

‘It’s just the manner of the result more than anything.

‘They’ve gone down to nine men and scored two goals.

‘It’s almost a given that we should have won the game - and we haven’t done that.’

Evans took a grain of solace from the manner in which Pompey looked so threatening going forward against a team who’d not conceded in their first three league games.

But the 31-year-old knew that shouldn’t cover up for his side’s failings at the other end for a moment.

And the man who returned to the starting XI with a goal doesn’t see Jackett as a manager who will sweep the problems under the carpet.

Evans added: ‘We look good going forward and capable of scoring goals.

‘It’s just a case of trying to keep clean sheets and keeping it to zeroes and ones against us.

‘That’s a massive part of the gaffer’s philosophy and something I’m sure he’ll be addressing in the coming days.’