David Norris believes Portsmouth could have momentum on their side going into the League One play-offs should they sneak into the top six by the end of the season.

The race for the post-season competition is hotting up, with no side currently in the top six seeing their place secure just yet.

Most teams in the hunt have had a spell of inconsistency in recent weeks, with main fancies Sunderland going six league games without a win, and that has dragged them back into a dogfight, with Lincoln City not certain of their position either after a flying first half to the season.

One team who looked like they were going to have a flying end to the season were Portsmouth, who under new head coach Danny Cowley won four games on the spin to kick off his reign at Fratton Park.

But a further run of four winless games was very damaging and Pompey now sit in seventh position in League One - and now all they can do is win games and hope teams around them slip up.

If they do sneak into the play-offs, then former Pompey midfielder Norris believes that Cowley's side could be a good shot to win the whole thing due to the momentum they'd be carrying compared to a Sunderland who would have had their eyes set on automatic promotion.

Speaking exclusively to Football League World, Norris said: "I think you see that year in year out that a team who were in the top two that drops into the playoffs, I think that mentally destroys a lot of players and teams that don't really recover from that.

"But the team with the momentum going into it, probably, you know, thinking 'we might get there, we might not' but if they do, it's like a free hit at it, so the pressures off a little bit more.

"And they tend to take that momentum and form normally as well because they're coming out from outside of it into it.

'They tend to normally do really well and that that could easily be the case. It's so close in that loop that could easily be the case this season for Portsmouth."