WE took our away form into our home play and didn't force the tempo or force the pace of the game.

At home the onus is on us to lift that tempo and lift the pace and we struggled badly to do that in the first half. We took too long to do everything, consequently Portsmouth had a couple of chances.

Saying that, Dean Holdsworth had a couple of chances before he scored his goal and Bo Hansen had one at the far post when he miss-kicked.

But we played a lot better in the second half and Michael Ricketts again showed his quality. It must be extremely disappointing for Isaiah Rankin who really didn't do anything wrong. But Michael has been so forceful and looked so good again, ultimately putting the ball in the back of the net with great ease and great style.

Isaiah is very very quick but he's not getting the same movement early doors that Michael is getting and he's not showing his pace as much as Michael, who is frightening people.

It was important to win to continue the run we've had away from home. We still have a lot of players not quite near their peak fitness and we've got that to come and the injured players to get back, which makes you think that we have quite a good squad. But, whether that will be good enough to be in the top half will only be determined at the end of this next month when we've played the big-hitters.

The continuation of our success is about getting players fit, keeping them fit to give us the strength in depth to compete with the likes of Fulham, Watford and Blackburn. If not then we will struggle against them.

We are still way down on the strength of the squads of Fulham, Watford, Blackburn and even Birmingham and that might be the key factor. But we keeping nicking and borrowing players and we continue to win matches, so who knows?

We've only conceded three goals and we're into double figures for goals scored. If we can keep that going, we'll be there or thereabouts. If we are still where we are after 12 games, we'll talk about having a good season. There's another five to go so, if we can stay around this position, we'll be talking about being serious promotion contenders.