Sheffield United manager Chris Wilder says his team have been in promotion-chasing form in the Championship despite their defeat to league leaders Middlesbrough on Monday night.
The Blades face another tough test when they visit Fratton Park on Saturday (kick-off 15:00 GMT) to take on a Portsmouth side who fare better on home soil.
"We talked about it, over the last 15 games it's been top-of-the-table stuff," Wilder told BBC Radio Sheffield.
"So obviously we've nudged our position down a little bit with not getting a result [against Boro].
"But I'm not going to beat the boys up too much about it and we go again on Saturday."
United have won nine of their past 16 games (D2 L5), picking up 29 points in the process to climb from 22nd to 17th, and are eight points behind the play-off places.
Only Middlesbrough (32), Ipswich (31) and Norwich (30) have gained more points in that time.
In terms of team selection at Pompey, Wilder said he did not expect there would be "wholesale changes" to the line-up, "especially after how the team performed" against Boro.
"The result obviously was not the one that we were after, but it's quite easy to look at the shortcomings of the team on Monday night and maybe dismiss a lot of positive actions and periods of that game against a top side," he added.
"Of course we want to win. We want to win at everything we do.
"But definitely not looking too much from a negative point of view, looking at a lot of the stuff that we did pretty well that night and hopefully taking that forward into Portsmouth on Saturday."