Former Portsmouth loanee Ben Sahar returns to the south coast with Hapoel Be’er Sheva tonight believing his side can cause a Europa League upset.

The 27-year-old had a miserable six month spell at Fratton Park in 2008 when he was on loan from Chelsea, failing to feature in a single game for Pompey.

He is very much an established star of the Be’er Sheva team, and ready to go to battle with Saints for a place in the knockout stages tonight.

He said: “I think I am not the issue here. The issue is the team.

“As a team we showed in Europe and at home we can play well.

“It’s an important game for both teams and we will try and win it.

“I won’t lie, when I saw the teams in the beginning in our group I didn’t think it would be easy, but I do believe we can do it. I know what we are capable of doing.

“We have had a few positive surprises but we have a good team and hopefully we will go on.”

Hapoel arrive in England full of confidence as they continue to romp away with the Israeli top flight. They also held Saints to a goalless draw in the reverse fixture.

They know a score draw would be enough to take them through to the last 32, and manager Barak Bakhar is concentrated on the job in hand.

“We are going to play a good team but we are here to focus on ourselves,” he insisted.

“We come here ready and we are planning to pass this game.

“The league games are not so easy like they seem. We make them look easy.

“We have a lot of hard prep that goes into it.

“The European games are obviously harder, we have flights etc, but we have a backroom staff who are working on it and we plan to win the game and continue on.

“In every game you ask who is the favourite and we are playing a strong team here and we try and do our best to get past them.”

Hapoel have experience of some big European away nights in their recent past, and Bakhar is ready for the challenge that lies ahead.

“We played at Celtic and Olympiacos and they were both big games with a special atmosphere,” he admitted.

“What’s important here is not where we are playing but the preparation we have and getting a good technical prep before the game.

“I don’t think at this level we have surprises really.

“We both played each other and we both prepared to face each other so we know who the teams are.

“We know we need to score. We know this and we will prepare in that way so we can score.”