Luke Offord says that everyone inside the Crewe Alexandra dressing room is looking forward to playing in the atmosphere at Fratton Park this weekend. The young defender, who captained the Crewe side in the win at Hartlepool United on Tuesday night, believes that the Railwaymen have a point to prove after a disappointing display there last season.

Crewe lost 4-1 to Pompey back in November and Offord says that was one of our rare off days in terms of performances on our return to League One.

Ahead of our trip to Fratton Park, Offord said: “It should be a great atmosphere at Portsmouth and as a player you want to play in an atmosphere like that. We are all looking forward to it and a chance to test ourselves against one of the bigger clubs in the league.

“We know it will be tough and that they have good players. We didn’t do well there last season. We know that. It was probably one of our worst away performances, so we know we have to improve.

“Hopefully, we can go there this season and give a really good account of ourselves.

“We had a tough game at Hartlepool on Tuesday because we had to play with ten men for a lot of the game but we came through it and got through, so that has given us a lot of confidence to take into Saturday.

He added: “I thought we did well to win and we defended our box well. When they started putting a lot of crosses into the box in the last 20 minutes, I thought we all stood up to that really well and headed everything. It was good to come through it.”