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Bouncing Back At Barnsley

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Yes, there’s no doubting the fact Pompey suffering defeat against Charlton on Tuesday was disappointing but we have to put that behind us and go again at Barnsley tomorrow.

Charlton’s visit was always going to be a difficult as, personally, I feel they could be an outside bet to push their way through the crowd and up the table, not only into a play-off position, potentially automatic promotion contention too? And so that proved as the Addicks returned to South London with a 2-1 victory at Fratton Park.

Admittedly, the fact Ben Thompson was incorrectly shown a red card didn’t help – fortunately, an appeal proved successful – but once a team has a two-goal head start you’re always playing catch up and Pompey couldn’t quite manage to complete the fightback.

Setbacks happen, how you react to them tells you a lot about how strong the character of a side is and how likely the prospect of maintaining a promotion push remains.

Now to Barnsley, which is going to be another really difficult game one that could potentially be played in difficult conditions if the weather forecasters are correct? But, given the tremendous away form shown by Pompey this season, I think most of us will feel confident enough of retaining an unbeaten away record. A fired up team looking to right the wrong from Tuesday should always work in our favour.

As ever, I’m not taking anything for granted and a confident attitude that we can simply rock up in Yorkshire and expect success could leave us faced with further disappointment come 5pm on Saturday. However, I don’t believe Kenny Jackett will ever allow the boys to take such an approach and the desire to make amends for a setback a few days earlier will see a perfect response at Oakwell…hopefully resulting in a Blues win.

PLAY UP POMPEY

Follow @VitalPortsmouth.

2018-19 Prediction League – December
Barnsley (a) – Saturday 15th December 2018 – click here.
Sunderland (h) – Saturday 22nd December 2018 – click here.
Gillingham (a) – Wednesday 26th December 2018 – click here.
Fleetwood (a) – Saturday 29th December 2018 – click here.

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