Envy of the Football League: Portsmouth pride as belligerent Blues eye extending remarkable record

And John Mousinho has urged his side to produce the same ‘ruthlessness’ demonstrated at Leeds and Middlesbrough to extend that remarkable statistic.

The Blues head to fourth-placed Burnley on Saturday stinging from successive home defeats, conceding six goals in the process, and are yet to win a Championship match.

However, they have yet to lose on their travels this season - and haven’t done so for eight-and-a-half months.

Pompey’s last defeat away from Fratton Park was at Cheltenham on January 6 and since that 2-1 outcome have gone 12 matches unbeaten.

Of Football League clubs, only Lincoln can match that tally, with nobody close to having a superior record than either.

And Mousinho is striving to build on that 260-day undefeated streak in Saturday’s Turf Moor trip.

He told The News: ‘They are all big tests, I don’t think we’re going to have any away game this year where we don’t speak before the match about how good the opposition are. They are all tough places to play - and Burnley is certainly one of them.

‘It is probably heightened by the fact they have started the season so well, they’re a side relegated from the Premier League last year and have the influx of a couple of new players and a new head coach. They’re going to be a side to be reckoned with.

‘In our previous two away games, we took our chances, where we didn’t really create a huge amount. We created fewer when away than we did at the weekend - and drew both fixtures.

‘I thought we had far more pressure on West Brom’s goal than we did on Leeds and Middlesbrough, we created better chances but just didn’t put the ball into the back of the net.

‘Against Leeds and Middlesbrough, we were pretty ruthless with the way we put the ball into the back of the net. We need to take a bit of that into those games where we do create a few more chances.’

Burnley are unbeaten at home this season and trounced bottom club Cardiff 5-0 last month.

It has been a brutal fixture list for Pompey so far, particularly with their injury list, yet Mousinho knows his team must start picking up victories, regardless.

He added: ‘It’s easy to forget how young some of these boys are and it’s the first time they’ve played at this level.

‘While we do have to have that positivity and patience, we must have realism as well. There is only so long we can afford not to be producing wins. We can’t keep coming in after games saying we’ve put in a decent performance and been unlucky, we have to get results at some point.

‘The league is still extremely tight, it’s still embryonic in terms of the table formation. A win last weekend would have put us 12th. We didn’t win, we are second bottom, but it’s really tight, it’s early days, and we must make sure we’re better.’