Hart urges Pompey to hold nerve

14 April 2009 12:15
Portsmouth boss Paul Hart says there is no chance of complacency creeping in at Fratton Park with six games still to go in the Premier League. Pompey are four points clear of the bottom three but boos reverberated around Fratton Park on Saturday after Portsmouth were held to a 2-2 draw by a West Brom side marooned at the foot of the table. Hart has been accused of failing to chase a victory in what was deemed a must-win encounter, but the former Nottingham Forest boss is making no excuses for his cautious approach. He accepts there is work left to do, though, and has warned his players they must stick to his gameplan if they are to remain in the Premier League. He said: "There are a lot of teams battling to move up the table, and I think there are going to be an awful lot of strange results. "It's fresh in the memory of those clubs who got out of trouble when everyone thought they had gone. It is possible it could go to the last game of the season, but I hope not. "We have to come out on top in our next game. So there is no complacency creeping into this camp, and certainly no foolhardiness." After inheriting a side that leaked goals under previous incumbent Tony Adams, Hart made tightening up Portsmouth's defence his number one priority. Just one defeat from their last seven games suggests Hart is doing something right, and the temporary boss is convinced the club remain on track to fend off the drop. "The situation is difficult but my job is to keep us in the Premier League," he told The News. "Perhaps we've not been exactly sparkling going forward, but in such a short space of time you can't expect everything to fall into place. "The Hull game was the first where we haven't scored and we've created chances in all of them. "We went in the bottom three when we hadn't done much wrong, but the most important thing was to get out of it - and now the crucial thing is to stay out of it. "It's still a perilous situation but overall I've enjoyed it so far - even the weight of responsibility that goes with it. "But I don't want to be the person with the bad news blues at the end of the season. I want positive stuff. "The players have made it enjoyable the way they've responded to what we want and it's been good."

Source: Eurosport