JACKETT: THIS WILL NOT SLOW US DOWN
KENNY JACKETT revealed that his Portsmouth side are already talking about going on another unbeaten run. They had gone 11 games without defeat before Gillingham’s visit to Fratton Park, but they were on the receiving end of a shock defeat yesterday.
The visitors got both their goals in the first-half, with striker Tom Eaves finishing emphatically before Alex Lacey sealed the win.
But Jackett insisted that his Pompey team are ready to go again.
He said: “When you do get going and get momentum, it’s a big thing.
“The players are talking about going on another run and bouncing back as it wasn’t our day.
“I feel that there are certain things we need to do better to learn from this.
“We can’t sweep the things that went wrong under the carpet as you won’t get better doing that. We need to take more responsibility in situations like this going forward.
“Within a short space of time after the game we covered all bases and spoke about starting again next week.
“We didn’t work their goalkeeper enough for the amount of ball that we had, which was the feature of the game, but fair play to Gillingham for a resolute display.”
Pompey were sluggish from the outset and in the opening exchanges, Gabriel Zakuni’s shot zipped along the soaking wet surface causing Craig MacGillivray to fumble.
Gillingham’s star striker Eaves broke the deadlock after 26 minutes with an exquisite piece of skill.
The frontman controlled the ball on his chest with his back to goal, before swivelling and firing his effort into the roof of the net.
And the away side doubled their lead on the stroke of half-time when Pompey switched off at a corner which allowed Lacey to rifle home unchallenged.
Jackett laid into his Portsmouth team during the interval and they came out firing.
But the visitors defended heroically for large periods of the second-half which saw them block a number of shots from Jamal Lowe, Ronan Curtis and Brett Pitman.
And Gillingham manager Steve Lovell hailed his defensive unit before gushing over Eaves’ first-half strike.
Lovell said: “Portsmouth came out in the second-half and put some pressure on us but we defended really well.
“We worked on our defensive plan all week and it paid off today. And Eaves’ goal was brilliant. He had in his mind exactly what he was going to do and he did it quite magnificently.
“Apart from the goal he scored, he worked his socks off up front and didn’t stop working hard.”