'These are baby steps': Danny Cowley on room for improvement with his table-topping Portsmouth

The Blues’ campaign has begun with a bang, racking up three straight wins and a maximum points return.

Last night’s hard-fought 1-0 triumph over Shrewsbury maintains an encouraging start for Cowley’s troops.

It is, of course, still August, with another 43 games remaining on the League One fixture list.

And while the head coach is heartened by winning beginnings, he believes there is still plenty of room for improvement.

Cowley told The News: ‘We need to play better than that if we want to stay where we are.

‘We must have more control, more rhythm, and definitely get the game on our terms.

‘You have to be fair to the group because we lost two players at half-time and that does disrupt you, there’s no hiding from that.

‘Connor is new to the group, Gassan is pretty new as well. When Gass came on, that also meant Reeco had to move to the right, so it was almost like three changes. That does disrupt you.

‘I want a team that the people of Portsmouth can be really proud of – and I think we are making baby steps.

‘We’ve had a lot to do. We’ve hopefully shown the importance of being able to bring one, two or three more players in considering injuries we picked up last night.

‘It’s a really tough league, against Shrewsbury was an up and at them, 100mph.

‘It was a bruising encounter and we stood up. We stood up – and you have to credit the guys for that.’

Ryan Tunnicliffe’s goal after 120 seconds proved to be the matchwinner at Fratton Park.

However, the Blues were required to dig in to retain their lead and register a third clean sheet of the league season.

The Blues’ head coach added: ‘It was a really challenging game. I’m pleased we’ve only got to play Shrewsbury once more because they were a real handful.

‘We showed some good qualities and that’s what you have to do sometimes, particularly when you lose the momentum in games, which maybe we did during the last 10-and-a-half minutes of injury time.

‘When you lose your momentum you have to dig in – and I thought we defended our box well in the closing moments.’

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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