Brian Howard assessed Pompey’s bleak Johnstone’s Paint Trophy exit and admitted: We shot ourselves in the foot.
And the Blues skipper told his team-mates to use the 3-1 exit to Wycombe last night as a sharp wake-up call.
Pompey fell back into their frustrating habit of conceding first as the Chairboys netted after just 13 seconds.
That got worse as the League Two strugglers doubled their advantage on nine minutes – and had clear chances to add to their lead.
Howard pulled no punches about the defending which cost Pompey dear and told them to put it right against Crewe on Saturday.
He said: ‘It was disappointing and it’s a wake-up call.
‘We wanted to have a good start to keep up the good form we’ve had.
‘To find ourselves 2-0 down after 10 minutes with sloppy goals and bad defending put us up against it.
‘But I thought we were patient after that and were going to go on to win the game in the second half. But the penalty was needlessly given away and killed us off.
‘We gave them simple chances by being sloppy on the ball.
‘We made bad decisions at times and gave it away, but we also got ourselves into good positions.
‘With a bit of quality in the final third we’d have taken the chances.
‘We started the second half strongly but we then got caught on the breakaway.
‘Maybe we got a little bit over-confident from the three games we had before this one.
‘So now we have to get right in amongst it against Crewe and get three points.’