Midfielder happy to start in victory at Rovers
He has had to wait patiently for a chance to impress in Pompey’s midfield.
So Danny Hollands was delighted to help the Blues win 2-1 at Bristol Rovers in his first league start of the season.
Jayden Stockley netted a second half winner after the hosts had cancelled out Gareth Evans’ headed opener.
And Hollands enjoyed the chance to play alongside Adam Barton, who was making his league debut for Pompey.
The midfielder said: “It’s always nice to play games, but the lads have been fantastic so far and the manager has hard decisions to make all over the pitch.
“I enjoyed the partnership with Adam in the centre and hopefully we can have a few more matches together.
“We started off really well in the first half and probably should have got a few more goals.
“But you know it’s always going to be tough coming to a place like Bristol Rovers and we produced a good performance to take the three points.
“We’ve impressed in spells in every game – league and cup – this season, although we probably need to start to take control for longer periods.
“But there were times when we passed the ball around nicely and were able to take the sting out of the match.
“It was nice to come back and get the winner after conceding early in the second half, then show plenty of character to dig in and see it out.
“We dealt with whatever they could throw at us quite well and I thought the result was deserved.”
The result saw Pompey climb to the top of the table, but Hollands knows that there is still a lot of work to do.
He said: “We’ve started really well, but there are plenty of games to go, so we won’t get carried away at this point.
“But it’s nice to be in good form ahead of back-to-back home matches on Tuesday and Saturday.”