Richie Barker had praise for Jed Wallace and sympathy for Ben Chorley after his side slid to another home defeat.
The 1-0 reverse to York, who have done the double over Pompey, left the Blues just one place above the bottom two with tricky away games at Rochdale and Newport to come in the next seven days.
Barker told the club website he couldn't fault his players on this occasion and added: 'We had highlighted a few things that would work for us and they did most of the time. Jed looked like he was thriving on what we’d asked him to do and was the key player in the first 45 minutes.
'He was the most influential, the most inventive and the most creative, so it certainly worked for him and for the majority of the team. I can’t fault the players’ effort or their work ethic — they’ve taken a lot on board in the last few days.
'Sometimes they can come in and say it hasn’t been good enough, but I believe they deserved something from that game. We need to keep believing and show the same willingness going forward, but it would be nice to go a goal up because that changes the mentality.'
Chorley will be banned for three games after being sent off for a heavy challenge onWes Fletcher and Barker added: 'I spoke to Ben and he said he genuinely went for the ball and didn’t intend to hurt their lad. The longer it went on I thought the ref wasn’t going to give the red card, but he did in the end.'
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