Won't get carried away after one home win. Won't get carried away after one home win. Won't get carried away after one home win. Won't get carried away after one home win. Repeat 100 times, or until the next home win.

It's a victory, four goals, three points ... and a second league win on the trot. All good. All commendable. All, in the end, quite comfortable. But we've learned not to get carried away by one win, or even two in a row, in the past couple of years. Too often, results like this have been false dawns.

If this one can be followed by four points out of six at Cheltenham and Luton and then - importantly - a win at home to Stevenage in a fortnight, then we'll be able to crow a little more loudly. A little. But let's just wait and see, first, shall we?

Of course today's win was not enough for some. There was, apparently, some booing at the end. If so, I find it incredible. If a 4-0 win - which in truth could easily have been 8-0 - isn't enough for you, I suggest you move to Spain and go and support Barcelona or Real Madrid.

I must confess I didn't hear the final-whistle booing - I was beating a hasty retreat to get home, dry and warm as quickly as I could. But director Mark Trapani, on Twitter, has reported hearing it and has rightly expressed disappointment at it.

I was as non-plussed as he was about that about the booing that interrupted what proved the build-up to the second goal. I just don't get it. I get that people become frustrated with our play at times, but if fans booed every time they weren't entirely happy with a passage of play, you'd hear nothing else at football grounds up and down the country.

Why you'd want to boo when your team is quite comfortably keeping possession, at 1-0 up, against nine men and is trying to get through for a second goal, I don't understand. Is that really what it's come to - if so, I despair. Do other teams have a section of such hard-to-please supporters? I'm not sure they do.

Thankfully the second goal, then a third and a fourth, did come. You might say Pompey should have killed the game off earlier - after all they'd been playing against 10 men for a while before a second Mansfield player saw red - but on another day they might have done.

It could have been 3-0 before half-time - it should have 3-0 or might have been even 5-0 by the hour. It wasn't but in the end the missed chances didn't matter. And had the game gone on another 10 minutes, or had that second goal come a little earlier, Pompey would probably have ended with six.

In contrast, Mansfield, both when they had 11 on the pitch and after they lost two men in the second half, only rarely looked like beating David Forde.

This was no classic, but surely goals, clean sheets and wins will do when you're trying to find the consistency you need to work your way into the automatic promotion spots, then hopefully stay there.

On a day that started with a dignified and respectful pre-match tribute to the fallen of war on Remembrance weekend (including, I noticed, the north-west corner of the ground rising as one after the game had started to applaud the standard bearers out of the stadium; though not including the minute's silence you'd have expected on such an occasion), there was a solid, no-nonsense look to Pompey's line-up and to their performance. And pleasingly it was a line-up attacking the Milton end in the first half - more of that, please.

Danny Rose was back in midfield and what a welcome return that was. I thought Amine Linganzi did okay (no more than that) on the occasions I saw him partner Michael Doyle, but Rose's performance against the Stags made you wonder if perhaps he should ever have lost his place.

Now that Linganzi's silly red card at Cambridge has opened the door for his return, he's playing as though he has no intention of getting to know the sub's bench well any time soon. Rose and Doyle feels like the right partnership in that position and long may it flourish.

A number of Pompey's players have had better days - Gary Roberts, although his early well-struck penalty set up the victory, missed easier chances and had quite a frustrating afternoon, while Kyle Bennett and Carl Baker have both had more influential games - though I suspect Baker and most Blues fans would be happy with him being below-par and scoring twice every week.

Conor Chaplin looked a little lonely up front though did cause Mansfield problems on the occasions he was brought into the play - and Noel Hunt's goalscoring appearance from the bench hinted that he may soon be pushing Chaplin for a starting spot in the odd game.

At the back Pompey had a few nervy moments late in the first half, when Mansfield seemed to gain confidence from the fact they had conceded only once in that first half-hour, but Christian Burgess and Matt Clarke are, for me, looking stronger all the time. Similarly Gareth Evans and Enda Stevens had solid games at full-back and gave Mansfield's wide players little width.

Mansfield probably headed home thinking the red cards shown to Kyle Howkins and Alex Iacovitti in the second half (neither of which they could really argue about) cost them the chance of a point, but I think Pompey would have won even against 11.

The fact they won against nine takes nothing away from how vital a win this was - a third straight home league defeat would have had serious questions being asked about Paul Cook's ability to get his talented squad functioning in front of their own fans. It's just a shame maximum points and a boost to the old goal difference (and incidentally Pompey's plus 11 in that column is bettered only by Plymouth's plus 14) was not enough for some.

Pompey: Forde; Evans, Burgess, Clarke, Stevens; Rose, Doyle; Baker, Roberts (Hunt 77), Bennett (Naismith 79); Chaplin (Smith 86). Subs not used: O’Brien, Whatmough, Close, Lalkovic

Referee: Roger East

Attendance: 16,393 (326 away fans)

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