The Portsmouth tinker man and the decision to make over whether he carries on rotating

Gareth Evans believes the Pompey boss has been justified in tinkering with his starting XI, as his side battle through a gruelling run of 13 games in six weeks.

Jackett made six changes for Monday’s FA Cup defeat with Arsenal and he also brought in five new faces for last week’s 3-1 success over Rochdale.

Now they are about to continue through another busy period with the trip to Peterborough on Saturday the first of five games in 15 days.

Evans said: ‘With the number of games we’ve had and been doing so well in the cup competitions the manager has made changes.

‘We’re finding ourselves playing Saturday-Tuesday every week.

‘We’ve put a squad together in the summer and January for when moments like this do arrive.

‘The manager has the ability to change and still field a strong team.

‘I think the manager has been justified in making those changes.

‘The aim at the start of the season was to get promoted not to win the FA Cup.

‘But we’ve got more Saturday-Tuesday games coming up for another few weeks.

‘We’ll see - but we’ve got the squad to do it.’

With 26 players at his disposal, Evans feels Jackett’s squad is in a much better place than when the Pompey’s promotion bid ran out of steam 12 months ago.

The 31-year-old believes the reason for assembling those options was for the times they are currently facing - and the performance against Premier League opposition on Monday confirmed the squad quality runs deep.

Evans admitted however, he’s unsure of the extent his manager will continue to switch things up.

He added: ‘We saw against Arsenal the quality we’ve got in the squad and what we have in depth.

‘That’s something we didn’t have this time last season.

‘I think the manager is confident in the squad now.

‘He believes he’s got a squad of players to keep on and keep this run going.

‘I think he’s got the quality to do it. It remains to be seen whether we will.’