I tried not to write a piece in the programme predicting we’d win the title, and failed. Wrote it anyway.

Now I’m going to write a piece about beating Derby and try not to get too carried away about it in the process. And I’ll probably fail there too.

Because this was a Fratton Park night to cherish. One when it was impossible not to be optimistic about the management team now at the Pompey helm and the squad they have put in place.

Quite simply, this was the perfect Pompey performance. They attacked with energy, defended with resolution, chased the ball when they didn’t have it, kept it well when they did, put away two of their chances in the second half and made a team who were one of the best in the Championship last season look rather ordinary.

The rather confusing thing about this Capitol One Cup first-round victory was that it came not from Paul Cook’s first-choice team but from one that showed numerous changes from the side who’d despatched Dagenham and Redbridge with some ease at the weekend. Who’ll play next week, we wonder?

In came Paul Jones, Adam Webster, Brandon Haunstrup, Ben Close, Danny Hollands, Adam McGurk and Jayden Stockley, joining just four players selected to start both games — Matt Clarke, Ben Davies, Gareth Evans and Kyle Bennett. I missed the Dagenham game but if this was a team containing half our second string, I can’t wait to see the true first XI.

Pompey, despite being just two games into the season, look a side who are being extremely well-coached and managed and taken to their peak of their fitness, impressively so given we are still in mid-August. They look a team hungry to play, hungry to entertain and hungry to win. And they achieved their goals on all counts.

From the very start, they went toe to toe with County and showed no fear, not a bit of it, in who they were sharing a pitch with. This may not have been Derby’s first-choice team (at least I hope for their sake it wasn’t) but it wasn’t Pompey’s either and every player in blue can hold his head high at having done their bit on a memorable, at-times spine-tingling night. I couldn’t believe the crowd figure when I heard it. 11,000? As Cook said afterwards, it sounded like three times that. He’s been around a bit as a player and manager but said it was one of the best atmopsheres he’d experienced.

The players new to Pompey may be taken aback at the sort of backing they are getting in these early days of 2015-16 but they should understand this: if they continue to play as they have done so far, with purpose, energy, commitment and not a little skill, they will have earned that support and will continue to get it.

Cook seems to have very quickly assembled a team who are capable of playing exactly as Pompey’s fans want them to, for which the new manager deserves huge praise, for this has surely not happened by accident. It’s a passing game, with plenty of one-touch phases and quick movement, and a pressing one too, with people all over the pitch quick to hassle opposition players in possession.

Recent campaigns have been blighted by too many players unwilling to work hard enough for the liking of the Fratton faithful. This season looks highly unlikely to be affected by such problems.

It’s hard to pick out a man of the match from the Derby display but the sponsors’ nomination of Stockley is a good shout. What a prospect he looks. Able to hold the ball up, bring others into the attack or take it on himself, Stockley has clearly not come here to warm the bench. Matt Tubbs will realise his lone striker’s spot is not guaranteed to be his with Stockley champing at the bit.

Others to impress included Davies, with another bustling performance at right-back; Bennett, who has supreme talent and a single-minded go-for-goal attitude when he gets anywhere near the box; Clarke, whose composed play at the back belies his age, and Ben Close, another who looks like he’s been playing at this sort of level for years and is calmess on the ball personified. And what about Webster and the previously-unseen-by-Pompey fans Haunstrup? Brilliant, nothing less.

To pick out those does a dis-service to the other starters, for no-one ended the night without great credit.

I’ve not even mentioned the three men involved in the winning goal — Danny Hollands, battling to get back in the first-team frame and looking better tonight than he did for much of last season, and effective subs Enda Stevens and Conor Chaplin, whose cross and finish respectively were worthy of winning more important games than a League Cup first-round tie.

McGurk had got on the scoresheet too, even if his header was fumbled in by Lee Grant when, as one of my Twitter followers pointed out, it would have been saved by Russell Grant.

Derby’s equaliser was disappointingly straightforward — Jason Shackell not shackled as he rose to nod in a corner at the far post. And if there was a criticism of Pompey, it was an inability towards the end to keep the ball, instead opting for needless attacks that handed possession back to Derby.

In truth, there was no great siege to survive as the men from Pride Park sought to avoid an early exit that had also been suffered by seven of their Championship rivals 24 hours earlier. Four minutes of injury time did drag on a little but keeper Jones won’t have too many games as quiet as this one this season — that’s if he has many games at all.

I should add that it would be wrong to go too overboard about what Pompey’s first two results and performances of the Cook era mean, prove or guarantee. It’s worth remembering the first FIVE games of last season, in which Pompey drew with Exeter, then beat Peterborough in the cup and Cambridge, Northampton sand Oxford in the league. It was a superb start but it was forgotten within weeks as a mediocre campaign unfolded.

But this team, and this manager, feel different. There is a professional, slick look to this line-up and the whole structure of the club and if the current momentum continues, Cook & Co could go a long way.

There — told you I wouldn’t be able to stop myself get carried away. Sorry.

Pompey: Jones; Davies (c), Webster, Clarke, Haunstrup (Chaplin 71); Close, Hollands; Evans, Bennett (Tollitt 74), McGurk (Stevens 55); Stockley. Subs not used: Murphy, Burgess, Atangana, Tubbs

Referee: Paul Tierney

Attendance: 11,573 (1,134 away fans)

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