Portsmouth Women told to get motoring on long road to Women's National League Southern Premier Division title

Sadler felt he finally saw the Blues reach maximum speed for periods of the 3-1 league win over rivals Chichester & Selsey under the lights at Westleigh Park on Wednesday night.

But the Pompey Women boss has likened his side's stop-start beginning to the season to 'running in third gear on the motorway'.

The Blues sit fourth in the table and host place-above Bridgwater on Sunday knowing victory would take them into third spot.

And Sadler wants to see Pompey Women start slipping through the levels and begin motoring up the table to close the gap on joint leaders Ipswich and Southampton.

He said: ‘I still use the analogy that we’re on a motorway and we’re sticking in third gear and it’s very hard to maintain high levels without blowing the car up.

‘We are in third gear on the motorway and the motorway is quick - there are a lot of good teams in this league - those are the fast cars on the motorway and we’re in third gear.

‘I felt on Wednesday (against Chi & Selsey), whether it was the system change, whether it was the team chat - whatever it was - but we went up to sixth gear and at moments in that car I saw us in sixth gear.

‘Yes, the win was the most important thing, apart from that actually seeing the intensity and aggression of our press, the purposefulness of us with the ball, creating chances and taking them - I come away thinking, ‘right, I’ve seen this team at fifth or sixth gear, now it’s about being at that level throughout a 90 minutes’.

‘As soon as we find that, however we do try to find that, we’ll go on a roll and we won’t fear any team when we’re playing at that level.’

Goals from Shannon Albuery, Dani Lane and Sammy Quayle set up Pompey Women's 3-1 midweek win over Chi & Selsey.

Sadler reverted to a 4-2-3-1 system with several attacking personnel still missing. And the Pompey Women's boss believes he now has 'two plan As' moving forward following the success of the new system employed in their fifth win from eight league games this season.