In The Absence Of A Pompey Review

[thenodrog]

Put simply Pmouth played a 4-5-1 that most on here would hate us to do (though God only knows why). They swamped midfield and all too easily nullified Dunn and Sav but worse still they stopped MGP and Bentley getting to the by-line. Without those two providing proper ammunition Benny and Roque will always struggle.

[yorkblues]

what a waste of petrol money .

greece crap

portsmouth crap

[bazza]

That's very harsh, Paul.

Incidentally, I read that Gamst was booed by Rovers fans. That's very harsh and short-sighted. The guy is out-of-form and no doubt very anxious to get back to scoring spectacular goals for Rovers - and he will get back to that level.,

I never heard Gamst being booed, and I was at the game. Where have you "read" this?

[shadsworth cloud]

i am not making excuses, because i don't think we'd have won anyway. in fact it probably saved us from a bigger defeat,

BUT

how does this injury time scam work. In the 1st half, Savage and Kanu were injured requiring lengthy treatments, there were countless delays and assorted hold-ups (sorry to be imprecise, but I can't remember them specifically) and after the goal it took a couple of minutes for pompey players to get back in position

The ref adds a measly 2 minutes.

In the second half, with substitutions galore, injuries (notably for pompey players), a goal kick had to be taken again (!), david james booked for time wasting. And the ref adds 4 minutes.

In those 4 minutes, i doubt the ball was in play for more than 1.5 minutes as pompey substituted the player farthest from the bench and a(nother) pompey player suffered an(other) injury

why don't they take timekeeping off referees and just count while the ball is in play? not 90 minutes, but (say) 70 minutes of ball in play. i feel we have been shortchanged today.

like i said, pompey deserved their win and we deserved our defeat, but just having a rant!!

[Hasta]

I never heard Gamst being booed, and I was at the game. Where have you "read" this?

I heard it whilst being sat in the Blackburn End. Was hardly a chorus of boo's but certainly some.

[bazza]

Who voted for McCarthy? Must be a Burnley supporter.

We had three quality players on the pitch today; Freidel, Samba and Santa Cruz. Pompey had 11 (Yes the other ten even made Hreidarssen look good)

I'm afraid the bubble has burst and Hughes has got to change personnel for Wednesday and maybe beyond.

Trouble is we are oh-so-slow on the counter attack and have been since we lost Bellamy.

Midfield is non-existant and second balls have not been won for quite some time now.

It's up to Sparky to ring the changes. He will if he's as good as we think.

[bazza]

why don't they take timekeeping off referees and just count while the ball is in play? not 90 minutes, but (say) 70 minutes of ball in play. i feel we have been shortchanged today.

I agree about the timekeeping. It should be completely independent from refs and when the 90 minutes of play is up a hooter should sound as in Rugby League. The only continuation of play after this, in accordance with the laws of the game, would be allowing a penalty kick to be taken.

[Eddie]

just a quick point for debate (and hopefully without stating the obvious)... MGP and mccarthy disappointed at not being transferred.

I don't agree. Everything coming out in the press from both is positive. If they were then we would know, particularly in the case of Benni. If you look at his career he has never been one to not say what he feels, in the past couple of weeks all he has done is praise the club.

They are in a bad run, it happens to even the best of them. It isn't helped by the fact that they aren't alone in being out of form, which makes it difficult to include them in the side and allow themselves to play their way back into form.

I think we should avoid going from one extreme to the other. Last week the majority of us thought we were a great side, this week it seems the majority think we are crap, those two things don't add up. For me we have all season had several players out of form and we will have to make do until January (at least) without the central midfielder that we need; however, for me today we lost this battle because two managers went head-to-head and one came out on top. Hughes didn't have an answer to a formation that totally took away all of our attacking threat. I don't actually think we deserved to lose the game, it had a draw written all over it but we allowed them to score.

Every team has bad weeks and every team has results that they shouldn't have. Liverpool won't be happy with their draw this week and last, United have lost to Portsmouth this season, Chelsea weren't happy with their draw against us last weekend. It happens. What we need to do is show a bit more resolve than we did today when bouncing back from a defeat.

[grizfoot]

You've got to give credit to Pompey, their defense was quite brilliant all game. Distin managed to limit the threat of Santa Cruz, although if anyone was going to score for us today it was him. Campbell had McCarthy in his back pocket all game. Strong midfield with the likes of Bouba Diop & Muntari meant we were out-muscled quite a lot in midfield.

Saying all that we really should be creating more chances with the skill of players we've got. MotM as got to be Friedel, that speaks volume for our performance really when your keeper is your best player in a home game.

[ABBEY]

how the hell was that not a booking on sav early doors ...if had been sav on someone i could imagine a straight red..compare tugs 2 yellow v citeh and its baffling

[Wild Irish Rover]

I heard it whilst being sat in the Blackburn End. Was hardly a chorus of boo's but certainly some.

I didn't hear any boos, but the loudest clap Gamst had all game was for his run to the touchline when substituted. Mind you, at least he didn't beggar off down the tunnel in a strop, like a certain other player who was brought off...

Anyway, we have to put the last week behind us and hope that Hughesey can get the lads re-focused and hungry for Wednesday - now that would make me unhappy, if we were to put in as dismal a shift against Big Team...

Having said that, the crowd never got going today either.. everyone was off form.

[grizfoot]

how the hell was that not a booking on sav early doors ...if had been sav on someone i could imagine a straight red..compare tugs 2 yellow v citeh and its baffling

Yes indeed. Bouba Diop was lucky to stay on the pitch he commited at least four fouls in the game today.

[Plastic Head]

Having said that, the crowd never got going today either.. everyone was off form.

It was very quiet today.

The 2 lads next to me (non season -ticket holders) who were not spotty teenagers but in their 20's, spent the whole game playing with their bloody phones, looking up briefly every 10 minutes or so, then left after 75 mins.

Meanwhile I was giving Pompey players both barrells for sneaking 5 yards at a throw-in.

I give up.

If you were near me today in t'Riverside and heard some base Anglo-Saxon I apologise but without the passion there would be no game.

[roversmum]

It was very quiet today.

The 2 lads next to me (non season -ticket holders) who were not spotty teenagers but in their 20's, spent the whole game playing with their bloody phones, looking up briefly every 10 minutes or so, then left after 75 mins.

Meanwhile I was giving Pompey players both barrells for sneaking 5 yards at a throw-in.

I give up.

If you were near me today in t'Riverside and heard some base Anglo-Saxon I apologise but without the passion there would be no game.

Only five yards? They managed a fair bit further than that in front of the JW

What with that and those dratted bells............................

[ABBEY]

ITS ALL RIGHT FOR YOU LOT MY BRONCOS ARE PLAYING AS ###### AS WE DID TODAY IF NOT WORSE.....IM FOUL ATM

[Rovermatt]

A home defeat to an inferior Pompey side is simply unacceptable. Terrible, terrible, terrible.

[philipl]

This is no inferior Pompey side.

[Fife Rover]

Well now I have had a chance to watch the match on Footy First ( all 50 mins of it) I feel obliged to say that I was very surprised both by what I saw, and heard from the comentary team. After what I had read on here earlier this evening I had expected to see yet another debacle something like we saw in Greece on Thursday. But nothing like it appeared on my screen, nor did the comentators slate the Rovers like on Setanta in Greece. I actually thought it was a decent match played between two good teams. OK Rovers finished up losing, but overall I feel it could have gone either way. They did not play badly and the difference for me was that Pompey played very well and defended better than Rovers. They also had the edge in midfield, but having said that Rovers had several decent chances and they could have scored on a number of occasions.

Overall, while obviously feeling disappointed, I don't feel robbed or cheated or angry in any way. It was good match and probably the best team won, but it was close. Even Benni redeemed himself for me. He worked damned hard (by his standards) chasing back and defending, then bringing the ball away and making decent passes etc. Rocky too worked hard and gave the pompey defenders a few problems. The only one I would say had a consistently disappointing game (but he was trying) was MGP. Other than that I feel our players did reasonably well without hitting the heights that they are capable of, but it was cetainly not crap, or laziness or tiredness on anybody's part that I could see.

So I feel better already, and I hope that we will find our top form again very soon.

[USABlue]

Did not see the game, did listen to it in fits and starts. Once they had scored and the way it sounded things were going I seemed to become resigned to a loss rather early in the game so did not pay a whole lot of attention. Disappointed with the loss, sounded like we just did not have our sharpness again. Nice to hear Benni put in someeffort, MGP's becoming a worry.

[USABlue]

That was Pompey's first away win in the Premiership since Boxing Day.

That, my friend, explains a lot, we always end teams crap runs. Phew I was beginning to worry we were going off the boil or something.

[RevidgeBlue]

Having said that, the crowd never got going today either.. everyone was off form.

To round off a grim afternoon I even got told off today for leaning too far forward in my seat! To say I was not pleased was an understatement!

As for the game I would draw a slight distinction between yesterday and Thursday. The Greek game was a totally unacceptable performance against a vastly inferior side.

Yesterday we started really well and Santa Cruz could (and maybe should) have scored and MCCarthy certainly should have. Could have been game over. However after that we let the tempo drop and eventually Pompey were gifted a couple of chances, one of which they converted.

For some reason the confidence seemed to visibly drain out of the side after that and we just got worse and worse as the game went on. I just can't understand why that should be the case and why we haven't more belief in our own ability after previously putting a fifteen game unbeaten run together.

A few random points:

MGP is taking a lot of stick but golden boy Bentley was equally as poor if not worse yesterday and has been most of the season. I'd have brought Roberts on for either of them at least 20 minutes earlier and gone 3 up front.

I've been one of McCarthy's biggest critics but I actually thought he worked a lot harder than usual yesterday. Unfortunately he was dropping far too deep minimising his effectiveness and leaving Santa Cruz completely isolated. They don't work well as a pairing.

Still don't think Ooijer is anywhere near Premiership standard.

One bad game in Greece and Bert has gone from being outstanding to looking like the lost soul he was under Souness.

Tugay plays far too deep these days to have any real impact.

We showed yet again that when a team gets ten men behind the ball we simply haven't got the wit and ingenuity to break them down. That's why I think it's very optimistic to think we can overturn a two goal deficit against Larissa given we never looked like cancelling out a single goal today.

Another performance like the last two v Brum on Wednesday and all of a sudden we could be competing on just two fronts instead of four.

[thenodrog]

A home defeat to an inferior Pompey side is simply unacceptable. Terrible, terrible, terrible.

Inferior? Rubbish! Were you at the game Matt? Portsmouth played well imo and deserve credit rather more than the rovers deserve criticism. A team packed with big lads determined to get something out of the game, strong in the tackle, athletic and disciplined with a solid defence..... and Kanu who though never 100% fit, has undoubted quality and usually scores against us (when WBA were relegated a couple of years ago I got widely dissed for suggesting we sign him!). They (helped by some lenient refereeing but I'm not going down that road as an excuse) bossed and bullied both Dunny and Sav in midfield and with our wingers taking the easy option of a lazy cross from deep instead of a pull back from the by-line our strikers were starved of any quality service with an increasingly desperate long ball onto Cruz's head being the favoured option. Not that clever either given that he was up against Campbell and Distin! To his credit he won his share but that tactic rarely leads to goals in the Prem.

[Paul]

After what I had read on here earlier this evening I had expected to see yet another debacle something like we saw in Greece on Thursday. But nothing like it appeared on my screen, nor did the comentators slate the Rovers like on Setanta in Greece. I actually thought it was a decent match played between two good teams.

Interesting remark that Fife. I can think of several occassions when I've seen a very good game at Ewood only for those who watched it on TV comment on how poor the game was. I didn't see the Larissa game so I can't compare the two. I do feel we failed to reach the standards set at EP so far this season and once Pompey score felt the game was over for Rovers. TBH I would not have been surprised if Portsmouth had ncked a second. At the live game there didn't seem to be any spark or wit about our play and after the first 15 minutes it seemed we would not score in a month of Sundays. Second half you could here a pin drop at Ewood and feel that was a fair gauge of how the support viewed our performance.

I'm inclined to think it was a one-off and expect a much improved performance on Wednesday evening. I'll stick to my original description of this game, which was "grim".

[thenodrog]

Put simply Pmouth played a 4-5-1 that most on here would hate us to do (though God only knows why). They swamped midfield and all too easily nullified Dunn and Sav but worse still they stopped MGP and Bentley getting to the by-line. Without those two providing proper ammunition Benny and Roque will always struggle.

I expect more teams will adopt this tactic against us now. This happened in the 1st div btw but Souness countered this by playing 3-5-2 when necessary. Granted we usually had better players than the opposition at our disposal and Eyal Berkovitz as our secret weapon in those days but maybe the double substitution should have been designed with that in mind.

Two tactical schools of thought in these situations

1. If it aint broke don't fix it.

2. If you want something different to happen you have got to do something different.

Yesterday the latter was applicable. I suggest some work needs doing initially in the managers office and then on the training ground to prepare the players for such alternatives when the need arises. Simply changing personel when the tactics have been sussed is rarely enough.

[cletus]

Very disappointed with everything about yesterday. The team simply looked sluggish in every department (except Brad & Samba who were awesome as usual)

Pompey are a big side & droopy certainly had them up for the game & got them well organised.

judging by the last two games, i hope & pray it`s not going to be a long hard winter.

Where was the movement?