View from dugout: Portsmouth manager Kenny Jackett has high hopes for the season
Defence will be crucial to a successful campaign
Kenny Jackett
Portsmouth manager
League One is as tough as it’s ever been but I think we’re ready to compete once again and obviously try to get promoted.
This is our third season in the division since going up from League Two and you can see the improvement year on year.
We came up with a team which was ageing and finished eighth, made changes and went on to finish fourth. The progress was good and I’d like to think we’ll compete with the best again.
I’ve got a good squad of players and we’re confident that if we can get off to a strong start then all the good things that happened to us last year will enable us to push on.
I’d like improvements defensively to make us harder to score against but I don’t want to do that and compromise our attacking intent. Only Luton scored more goals than we did last season and the threat we carried going forward was one of our big pluses.
My focus has been on getting our players ready for the new campaign but you can bet that 100 per cent I’ve been looking at what our rival clubs have been up to.
And what I see is plenty of teams who look equipped to make decent pushes, probably 60 to 70 per cent of the division.
Three good teams were relegated, although Bolton have got their problems, and teams who come down seem to do well.
Two seasons ago the three who were relegated from the Championship all went back up. Last season it was Barnsley and almost Sunderland while Burton could have made the playoffs had they started the season as they finished it.
I can see Blackpool being stabilised under Simon Grayson, Coventry doing well and there are others.
Remember Shrewsbury a couple of years back; they surprised pretty much everyone by making the top three. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see another season like that because this is competitive.
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