Blues boss Paul Jewell says his Town side are making up for their lack of physical stature with determination, desire and heart. However, it is an area the Town manager may look to address in the future.

Jewell says the team is smaller than the sides he has assembled at his previous clubs: “My teams have always been big and strong and I look at us at the minute and we’re not.

“But that doesn’t mean to say we can’t compete. I don’t know how many corners and throw-ins Portsmouth had the other night but for all their height advantage, we protected our goal fairly well.

“It’s about having good hearts. You can be as big as you want to be, but if you’ve got a heart the size of a pea it’s no good.

“At the minute we’re competing against players who are bigger and stronger than us but when we’ve got the ball we’ve been playing well.”

Generally, with certain notable exceptions, Jewell says top teams tend to be bigger than the current Town side: “If you look at most of the Premier League teams most of the best teams in English football are strong and athletic and big. I know you’re going to say that Barcelona aren’t very big.

“I’m not saying you have to be six foot tall to sign for us but it’s an area where at times we look a little bit vulnerable.”

With the Blues having been under par against Pompey, the Town boss was pleased his team ground out a win when not playing well, something decent sides have to do: “We have to be careful as we’ve got 34 games left but any team that’s going to be successful in any league in any part of the world is going to have a lot of games where they don’t play to their maximum or anywhere near their best but get a result, whether that’s a draw or that’s a win.

“That determines who is successful. Southampton are playing great at the moment but there will probably be times this season when they don't play well and are going to have to grind results out to get something out of the game.

“The same with Chelsea, Manchester United or Manchester City, there are going to be games where they will have to just dog it out, and that was what we did the other night.”

Meanwhile, Jewell has praised the way right-back Carlos Edwards has coped with his off-field issues in recent weeks: “He seems to be able to put his problems behind him when he gets on the pitch Carlos, that’s his nature.

“He’s had a traumatic week, his wife’s given birth to twins and he was in court, so it hasn’t been an easy time for him. I think he deserves a bit of credit. I think he wants to put that stuff behind him and just move forward and play his football.”

Edwards’s prematurely-born twin babies are now being cared for in Ipswich Hospital having previously been at Addenbrooke’s in Cambridge.

Story syndicated from TWTD.co.uk

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