Fit-again goal hero's Portsmouth pledge as he refuses to bask in yesterday's glory

The popular striker plundered 24 goals in his maiden Pompey season, of which 20 arrived in League One.

Bishop’s pre-season has so far been disrupted by injury after rolling his ankle in training, missing the Blues’ last three friendlies.

However, he returned to training at the end of last week and is expected to feature in their remaining fixtures ahead of the August 5 opener against Bristol Rovers.

Plenty of time to build up momentum as he bids to repeat last term’ scoring heroics for John Mousinho’s men.

Yet Bishop isn’t merely content to match those outstanding exploits – he wants to better them.

He told The News: ‘Last season was the best of my career in terms of league goalscoring – but not the best I’ve played.

‘There’s still a lot I can do better and a lot I can improve on. I want to do better than last year, I’m not looking to match it.

‘Now I’m starting from scratch. Last season was great, I’m very grateful for what happened, but this is another season. It says zero in the goal chars and I want to score more.

‘I can definitely play better, no-one has cracked it, have they? If you asked Ronaldo or Messi they would say they can improve – I’m nowhere near them. Ask anyone in our team if they can play better, they’re going to say they can.

‘I had some really good games, but there were matches in which I put in disappointing performances. That’s the same with any footballer.

‘I’ve definitely improved since coming here and just want to get better and score more.

‘For me, last year is forgotten now, this is a new season. The charts no longer say ‘Colby Bishop 20 goals’. I have to build that up again – and until I do then I can’t be happy about it.

‘It’s a given that any striker will view 20 goals in a league season as great. I got 20 last season, but that was yesterday, not today.

‘I just want to beat what I did in 2022-23.’

Having netted on his debut against Sheffield Wednesday on the opening day of last season, Bishop maintained a remarkable scoring rate.

And hopes are high he can use his goal-scoring powers to drive a promotion push in the forthcoming campaign.

Bishop added: ‘No disrespect to the teams I played for in the past, but at Accrington it was fighting against relegation, so a very different team to play in.

‘If you’re in a relegation battle, sometimes you are lucky if you get one chance a game, you’re deeper in the pitch, you have very good teams like Ipswich keeping the ball away from you.

‘At Pompey I’m playing in a side which is higher in the table, you have more of the ball, you get more chances. A lot of the time it correlates with the team you’re playing in.

‘I thought I had some good games, I also thought there’s some I can improve on.’