There may have been a few players on show against Northampton who won't feature against Plymouth in the play-offs - but Liam Richardson says there were plenty of positives from the players who showed up well against Northampton.

And the assistant Blues boss says the management will spend the next few days monitoring how the club's injured few are recovering before they decide who will take to the field in Fratton Park's Thursday night first leg.

Richardson told the club website Pompey 'acquitted themselves well' despite losing 2-1 to Northampton.

He told the site: 'There were some good individual performances, although we weren’t as energetic as we’d have liked in the first half. But we were playing against a great side who are champions for a reason and we have to give them every credit.

'We knew it was going to be two good teams facing each other and we’re disappointed to lose the game. But once we look back on the result and can digest things then we ticked a lot of positive boxes.

'It was important for Jack (Whatmough) to be out on the pitch and get minutes under his belt, and it was a great strike from Kal (Naismith). We see things like that every day from him in training and the gaffer’s trying to squeeze the best out of him.

'Hopefully it was just cramp for Ben (Close) — that’s certainly the early assessment and we’ll keep our fingers crossed. We’ll have to dust ourselves down and see where we are.'

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