If you're in the 'pre-season friendly results don't matter' camp, you'll not be too concerned that Pompey followed a 3-0 win at Havant with a 1-0 defeat at Gosport in their opening weekend of pre-season games.

But some will be worried the Blues still do not have much in the way of senior strikers as the build-up to the 2022-23 League One campaign gathers pace.

Danny Cowley was pretty happy with what he'd seen in two half-and-half games in which Pompey fielded plenty of different personnel.

A 3-0 victory over Havant & Waterlooville on Saturday came thans to goals from Ryan Tunnicliffe, Ronan Curtis and Liam Vincent. A 1-0 loss at Gosport followed on Sunday.

Cowley told the Pompey website: 'We’ve had four halves of football over the past couple of days and I was pleased with three of them. It was a good professional performance on Saturday, but we were disappointed with the opening 45 minutes at Gosport.

'We lacked the energy and intensity that we like to play with, although we were pleased with the group after the break. The average age was very young, but they created a lot of promising chances that we were just unable to take.

'There were some positives for us to take over the two days and we knew that it would be demanding for the players — physically and mentally. But that’s what pre-season is all about — it’s supposed to be testing for them. They’ve got about 60km in their legs.

'We had a double session on Saturday morning before going to Havant & Waterlooville and so we understand why they looked a bit tired. We obviously still need to recruit and we know the areas we want to strengthen. The club are working hard to make that a reality.'

Pompey now head to a week-long training camp in Murcia, Spain, and Cowley told the media: 'Tt will be nice to have a change of scenery. It will probably be a little bit warmer. We’ll enjoy each other’s company and the sessions will be hard — there will be double or triple ones every day.

'We want to keep working on the players physically, as well as technically and tactically, and bringing them together because spirit is an important quality in a successful team.'

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