Paul Cook says he'll keep playing to entertain - and if certain opposition teams merely set out to frustrate Pompey, that's their business.
Crawley's surprising tactic of going all out for a 0-0 draw on Tuesday night is one that other teams might try, but Cook says his team will always play to dominate, entertain and win.
Speaking in the build-up to Saturday's home clash with Morecambe, Cook told The News: ‘As a manager I enjoy watching us play. We’ll go to Luton and play the same way, at Oxford we’ll play the same way, we won’t take backwards steps. We want to engage in good games, if other teams don’t that is not my problem.
‘There have already been games when the opposition couldn’t get the ball off us, but then people might criticise you for not scoring goals, this is the balance to teams.
‘At the end of the day any team has the right to play how they want. My philosophy is playing good, attractive football, trying to dominate possession and win games. I always feel if you can do both then supporters will be quite happy.
‘We will play the same away from home as at home, I think our fans are learning that quite quickly. It doesn’t really bother us when people say our away form is bad for example, I don’t really grasp that.
‘We don’t play the crowd, we don’t play the terraces, we play the XI lads on the pitch and if you are having 60-plus per cent possession of a ball the likelihood is you should be getting somewhere.
‘The problems will be when teams get a lot of players behind the ball and try to frustrate us. It pleases me that on Tuesday we came away from home, dominated and played in a really good and correct manner. Unfortunately we weren’t good enough to break them down.’
Meanwhile the manager whose team ended Pompey's 100 per cent record - Mark Yates at Crawley - is Cook's men for the League Two title.
He told the West Sussex County Times: 'For me they’ll win the league, for me they have the best manager and the best players by far. They are really pleasing on the eye and have recruited players who can get them out of this division. I fully expect them to be champions come the end of the season.'
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