Portsmouth boss Danny Cowley refutes suggestion that should have promotion rivals Plymouth, Sheffield Wednesday, Bolton & Co on alert

The Pompey boss said he’d be disappointed if anyone in his group had suffered a drop in self-belief with the Blues very much in the promotion mix.

The Fratton Park side host Shrewsbury on Saturday looking for only their second win in seven League One outings.

That run of form, which includes defeats to Ipswich and Charlton, has seen them drop to sixth in the table – and has seen some players struggling to repeat early-season standards.

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More importantly, it also coincides with miserable luck on the injury front, with Pompey currently having 10 players requiring treatment ahead of Steve Cotterill’s return to PO4 this weekend.

Indeed, with four central-midfielders ruled out of Tuesday night’s 1-1 draw with Oxford, it’s fair to say Cowley is down to the bare bones in terms of options.

And he said that’s the one and only issue affecting results rather than confidence being a factor as well.

With the Blues having games in hand on all teams currently above them, Cowley said: 'We're in the play-off positions and I think, if we win Saturday, we're pretty much two points a game.

'We're also 18 unbeaten at Fratton Park so I would be slightly disappointed if we were short of confidence.

'Going into Tuesday's game we had four key central midfield players unavailable, and you know when you're going into a game in that moment it's not going to be perfect.

‘You're not going to play with the control and rhythm that you like, you mightn't even be able to play exactly to the game idea that you like and that's just the situation.

'But if you can't do that then you're going to half to find a way and I was proud of the group on Tuesday with the resilience and determination that they showed and actually second half with the courage that they showed (to come back from 1-0 down).