Winger happy with Pompey display against Reading
Kyle Bennett believes Pompey can be proud of their performance against Reading.
The Blues exited the Capital One Cup in the second round after their Championship opponents fought back from an interval deficit at Fratton Park.
Conor Chaplin had fired the hosts ahead before Nick Blackman and Garath McCleary netted for the Royals.
But Bennett – one of three players to keep his place in the starting 11 from the weekend – was not too down about the result.
He said: “We put a lot of hard work into the game against a top Championship team and gave a good account of ourselves.
“We had a real go at Reading, but unfortunately we just came up that little bit short on the night.
“They’ve got some decent players – that’s why they get paid the money they do.
“I don’t think they expected us to come out the way we did and we were able to close them down early on.
“We knew they’d get a rocket from their manager at half-time and that we’d be up against it.
“It might not have been the result we wanted, but I think the lads can come away from that feeling proud.
“That’s our first loss of the season and it doesn’t feel great, but we’re not going to go through the campaign unbeaten and the important thing is how we bounce back from it on Saturday.”
Chaplin netted his second goal of the season from an acute angle after a mistake from Reading keeper Ali Al-Habsi.
Bennett said: “It was an unbelievable goal – it reminded me of one Kanu scored for Arsenal. I was going to go mad at him for not squaring to me!
“But it was a great finish and I think you can see that he’s got a great future in the game.
“He’s always practicing his finishing in training and he’s up there with Tubbsy in that respect.”