Portsmouth head to The Valley this weekend to take on Charlton Athletic as John Mousinho’s side look to cement their position at the top of League One.
It’s been an excellent couple of weeks for the Blues. Six wins in seven league matches has eased tension after two losses in a row at the start of January.
It’s a slightly different feeling in South London.
The Addicks are in the thick of a relegation scrap and sit just one point above Cheltenham Town, who have played two fewer games.
With League Two football a genuine possibility, Charlton appointed Nathan Jones at the start of February, a well-known character on the South Coast, but not for the right reasons.
The former Southampton boss has drawn two and lost one of his three games in charge, including a 3-3 draw against Bolton Wanderers, which cannot be snarled at.
Jones has been talking to local press before Pompey’s trip to The Valley.
Nathan Jones on Portsmouth clash
Jones told the South London Press: “We’ve got a tough run of fixtures, for different reasons, and then three away games on the spin – which seems crazy.
“Playing Bolton, Pompey and Derby in a row is tough, so we are up against it, from an outside perspective, but they are games where you’ve got to take as many points as we can.”
On Mousinho’s side, he added: “Portsmouth travel well and they have an excellent fanbase. Like Charlton, they’ve had tough times in recent years, but the fanbase has always been excellent.
“They are well-coached and they’ve got people who can score goals. They have a goalscorer who can score regularly.
“They have had players that have been around the level for a while and have experience of it – you look at Marlon Pack, Sean Raggett, Connor Ogilvie, he’s been at Gillingham and started at Tottenham. They are players who know what they are doing at the level.
“It’s going to be a really tough League One game and we know that. But it’s also going to be very tough for Portsmouth.”