The whole team can be proud of themselves

Redknapp, who says he wants a big home draw in the next round, made a number of changes from his regular side and admitted that this is a big competition for Portsmouth. "The Carling Cup is important to us," he said. "We're not going to win the Premier League and there's two competitions we've got a chance in - the FA Cup and the Carling Cup.

"All the lads who came in did a good job. All the players need to keep on playing well if they want to be part of what we are doing here. You get injuries and you get suspensions so they'll all get a chance. Football's a squad game and we proved that against Burnley.

"It was an okay performance and in the second half we kept the ball a little bit more comfortably. They played a 4-3-3 formation like we played in our two previous games against Liverpool and Blackburn and they showed it can be effective to have an extra man in midfield. David Unsworth played very well for them in midfield. He played for me and I didn't know he could play in midfield until now."

Redknapp was happy to see his £7 million striker David Nugent score the only goal of the game. "Nugent needs to take his chances when he plays. He scored the winning goal and hopefully he can take confidence from that.

"He missed a good chance in the first half but all the chances were falling to him and eventually he stuck one away. We've got a lot of competition up front with four good strikers."

We might have gone out of the competition, but Steve Cotterill was still more than happy with our performance. "It was a great performance. We played well and there's just a tinge of disappointment that we haven't got something out of the game, but other than that, no problems whatsoever because I thought the lads were great.

"We passed the ball very well, especially in the first half. In the second half it is always a credit when they put their big guns on and all credit to Portsmouth. They have been away for a few days and changed their team around and they have some excellent players."

There was controversy surrounding the winning goal and Cotterill said about that: "Nugent told Stephen Jordan it was handball, but the closest person was the linesman. I don't know, but it isn't something we are going to be bleating about. It's been and gone."

On our performance he said: "I thought the system went well. The players in front of David Unsworth in that system are key and I thought they were very good in creating the space for David. I don't know whether David has played that one before, but there's a great chance he might have done at some time in his career.

"I just felt I needed to freshen it up tonight. We have played Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday and we have that again, so when it's rolling like that it makes life difficult. Andy Gray couldn't play with his infection and Robbie Blake has been up all night because his missus has given birth, so there was no better time to get more fitness into Kyle.

"I thought Ade was good and you can see he is a lot sharper than last season. The boys who came in did very well and the whole team can be proud of themselves."