Powell: Pressure is on Portsmouth at Southend

Kenny Jackett’s troops travel to Roots Hall aiming to reignite their promotion charge.

The Blues are winless in their past five League One games. 

Pompey’s poor form has seen them drop out of the automatic promotion places and they lost further ground on the top two following last Saturday’s 1-1 draw at Plymouth.

Southend have also been struggling of late. They’ve picked up just one victory in seven and were beaten 3-0 at Doncaster on Tuesday. 

But Powell reckons there’s more of a burden on the visitors to pick up three points than his side. 

The Shrimpers boss told the Southend Echo: ‘It’s a big game but maybe the pressure will be more on Portsmouth because people will be expecting them to get the result.

‘It’s up to us to turn that in our favour because we need it.

‘We know how tight it is and we have to look at Saturday and say bring it on and do the best we can to get the three points.’

The Roots Hall clash will be broadcast live in front of the Sky Sports cameras.

Powell feels Southend will relish the occasion.

He added: ‘We have 14 games to go and we have to take it game by game.

‘We can’t think about anything but Portsmouth.

‘It’s a big, big game when you consider who we’re playing and the TV cameras being here too but we’ll look at our players to do the best they can to take something from the game.’