Skipper delighted with Daggers triumph
With Pompey fans outnumbering the home support, it was hard to ignore their frustration.
‘This is embarrassing,’ they sang, as their side trailed bottom-of-the-table Dagenham early in the second half.
But the mood changed from anger to delight after the Blues struck four times to turn the match on its head.
And Michael Doyle – who volleyed home the first of those – was pleased that they were able to turn the supporters around.
Pompey’s skipper said: “The fans obviously weren’t happy and so we had to draw them back in because they have a massive effect on the game.
“You can feel them when you’re out on the pitch – they really are like a 12th man if you’ll excuse the cliché.
“They wanted to see a bit more than we were offering and gave us a bit of stick when we were losing.
“I’m not knocking them for that. It was frustrating being out there playing, so I can only imagine what it was like for them.
“I’ve played in teams that have gone under when the fans have started to turn, so it was important that we were able to stand up and be counted.
“We all knew that we needed to show some character – and that’s exactly what we did in the second half.”
Doyle was also pleased that Pompey recorded a third successive league win for the first time this season.
He said: “It’s nice to have that monkey off our back and you need to go on runs if you want to win promotion.
“It was a bit of a rollercoaster for us and we were sloppy early on, giving Dagenham a goal out of nothing.
“But the second half couldn’t really have gone any better and the first one we scored allowed us to bounce back into the game.
“We had all the momentum from that point and were able to drive on to finish the match off, which was brilliant.”