Portsmouth defender Sol Campbell is already looking ahead of Saturday’s FA Cup final against Championship side Cardiff City and insists that the entire team has to step up the accelerator pedal and win the historic trophy.

Portsmouth and Cardiif City match up at Wembley this Saturday to contest the FA Cup final with a place in next season’s UEFA Cup at stake. While Pompey ought to be the favourites given their Premiership status, they are not in a good run of form and were beaten 1-0 by Fulham at the weekend, which saw the Londoners sustain their Premiership status.

That Fulham defeat was their fourth defeat in four marches and defender Sol Campbell insists that they now have to turn on their style, regroup themselves and beat Cardiff City on Saturday.

He also insists that Portsmouth have got to shrug off the “over-achievement’ tag to prove that it is by no mean coincidence that they finished as high as eight in the Premiership table this season.

Sol Campbell says:

“We’ve got to stop talking about over-achievement. Too many guys here have been at the top and it’s time to move away from those kind of comments.

“The (top-quality) players are here and we need to get away from the kind of mentality where we should feel pleased about finishing eighth. We’ve really got to knuckle down, train right and make sure everybody is focused and up for the game on Saturday.

“But forget the FA Cup for a moment – we have to win the game and get ourselves into Europe. Winning the FA Cup would be fantastic, but the main objective is Europe.”