Whittingham: Pompey can make rivals worry

The caretaker Blues boss leads his team to Leyton Orient tonight in search of a third straight League One win.

Although Pompey looked dead and buried recently, as they went 23 games without a victory, they are now eight points from what would normally be safety.

While Whittingham still expects the club’s 10-point deduction to be enforced if his team should somehow climb out of the relegation zone, he is intent on at least making other clubs sweat on their status.

Whittingham said: ‘I am not saying it has turned around – we are a long way from it.

‘We have a few games left and we need to go out and win quite a few more.

‘We shouldn’t settle for just the two and get complacent and think “at least we have achieved something”.

‘We haven’t achieved anything yet.

‘But there is a real fight on to get us up that table a little bit closer in points, so let’s just see.

‘Everybody else looks at us and thinks “well, they are on minus-10 anyway and are going to be going down”.

‘Well, let’s make one or two look around and think “perhaps they are not, perhaps we can’t rest on our laurels and think Pompey are one of the teams down and there are only three other spaces”.

‘We need to keep fighting, we need to keep working hard and, most of all, we need to give our great fans a reason to keep coming.

‘They have been fantastic so far. They have helped us through so much and now we are finally giving them something to smile about. We can’t stop.’

Pompey moved off the foot of the table with a 2-0 success over Bury at the weekend and could climb to third from bottom if other results go their way in a full programme of League One action tonight.

But Whittingham is determined to stay grounded about the Blues’ prospects even though he admits their two victories on the spin have given everyone a much-neeeded lift.