Getting hairy: Portsmuff at home 13/4/24 3pm KO

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

Shame about the scoreline. Seems we did everything to win except get that all elusive second goal. On to the game against Shrewsbury. Here's hoping to Elias remembering where the net is against Derby

No kettle, Sonic I'll just leave this here.

You'd think a 6 grand coffee machine could stand in for a week, but it only managed 1 goal

[Worthy4England]

Shame about the scoreline. Seems we did everything to win except get that all elusive second goal. On to the game against Shrewsbury. Here's hoping to Elias remembering where the net is against Derby

No kettle, Sonic I'll just leave this here.

You'd think a 6 grand coffee machine could stand in for a week, but it only managed 1 goal

Don't take thus personal AT. But pfft.

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

Shame about the scoreline. Seems we did everything to win except get that all elusive second goal. On to the game against Shrewsbury. Here's hoping to Elias remembering where the net is against Derby

No kettle, Sonic I'll just leave this here.

You'd think a 6 grand coffee machine could stand in for a week, but it only managed 1 goal

Don't take thus personal AT. But pfft.

None taken

[officer_dibble]

Thought the decision to start Gethin cost us the goal fwiw.
But not slating them how they played / tried today.

Bold claim indeed, considering the goal came from a breakdown between Ogbeta and Sheehan, then Kamara driving towards Toal.

Jones had nothing to do with it.

It’s explained better by others above.
Jones playing means Toal at LCB.
Iredale is left footed and properly up for it.
Toal is right footed and for me not as good at left centre half as right centre half.

[Worthy4England]

Thought the decision to start Gethin cost us the goal fwiw.
But not slating them how they played / tried today.

Bold claim indeed, considering the goal came from a breakdown between Ogbeta and Sheehan, then Kamara driving towards Toal.

Jones had nothing to do with it.

It’s explained better by others above.
Jones playing means Toal at LCB.
Iredale is left footed and properly up for it.
Toal is right footed and for me not as good at left centre half as right centre half.

Well, I mean all of the above and he waltzed past Ogbeta twice...

[officer_dibble]

Ashworth is a funny one. Done well when he’s played for me. But what do I know? Ogbeta set the goal up and he’s pretty hand going forward. Davies cogley is a belting player until you get near the box. I’m nitpicking on todays showing…

[Worthy4England]

Ashworth is a funny one. Done well when he’s played for me. But what do I know? Ogbeta set the goal up and he’s pretty hand going forward. Davies cogley is a belting player until you get near the box. I’m nitpicking on todays showing…

Ogbeta set us one up and lost us one, for me, he was the difference between 1-1 & 0-0.. I though JDC and JDB were pretty innocuous overall and the two JDB chances have probably made the difference on the day..

[officer_dibble]

Yeah JDB could have justified his year yesterday… here’s hoping him or Cameron have their moment soon, we are running out of chances!

Shame Santos couldn’t attack the ball off the two corners where he had chances as well as he can defend them. Wheater or Beevers gave us that edge last time we got out of this division. Wouldn’t be surprised if he missed Tuesday given how he was moving at the end.

[TANGODANCER]

Good job Santos is a big tough lad, because he was involved in a real physical scrap with the Pompey attacks. Sure hope he's carrying no knocks. Both he and Toal were stars yesterday.

Might sound a bit treacherous, but I reckon Coleman would have saved the first goal. There, I've said it. We really left the door open for that one. Their winger just picked his spot and caught us by the sort and curlies.

[officer_dibble]

He played with an injury yesterday Santos , Tango. Was moving very awkwardly at the end.

[Mar]

He played with an injury yesterday Santos , Tango. Was moving very awkwardly at the end.

Hardly surprising, one of Portsmouth's forwards kicked out against him. Don't think it was Yengi, think it might've been the other one that came on as sub.

[officer_dibble]

I think he played through an injury - but yeah he took a kick as well from one of their time wasters.

[The_Gun]

Easy for me to say with hindsight, and entirely speculative, but I do wonder whether we’d have given ourselves a better chance of winning with different substitutions.

Charles I’d have brought on for Bod much earlier and probably have left Collins on. Sheehan and Maghoma I’d have kept on until the end unless they were extremely tired, and Williams I’d also have brought on much sooner.

I concede that Ian’s knowledge of, and experience in, football far exceeds my own, but as an armchair observer I do feel his in-game management is perhaps an area that could be improved.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Easy for me to say with hindsight, and entirely speculative, but I do wonder whether we’d have given ourselves a better chance of winning with different substitutions.

Charles I’d have brought on for Bod much earlier and probably have left Collins on. Sheehan and Maghoma I’d have kept on until the end unless they were extremely tired, and Williams I’d also have brought on much sooner.

I concede that Ian’s knowledge of, and experience in, football far exceeds my own, but as an armchair observer I do feel his in-game management is perhaps an area that could be improved.

I see what you're saying and we'll just never know. Possible they're worried about rushing Dion back - maybe they'll give him longer Tuesday but still not start him. Perhaps long enough to overlap with Collins in what you'd imagine will be our first-choice partnership by the end of the month, if not the end of the week.

I wonder whether Williams will start on Tuesday - to give Ogbeta a rest and get Randell up to speed. He's only had bits since he came back.

[officer_dibble]

He does tend to make that same substitution week in, week out. I’d of liked to have seen Charles and Collins together as well. We will never know!

[DJBlu]

I'm hearing that was our 109th goal this season?

Why is the distribution so off? Seems pretty shit that we spank Oxford 5 nil and couldn't hit a cows arse with a banjo yesterday.

Can't be miffed at JDB for not squaring to Thommo cause when he did Collins diverted it away from Paris.

I'm not a religious man but I genuinely do think there are forces out there doing something. For all our chances their keeper made, two very easy saves.

What worries me is the, if we play like that we'll be fine, mentality.

We played some great football yesterday and were still found wanting. 3 games left where we need to make a statement.

3 wins with goals please and I'll start to believe.

Also, Gethin back, no clean sheet, might be nothing but Toal has to really work harder on the left. What would Evatt do if Johnston was fit?

Sheehan doesn't get a free pass for his ironically poor pass to Nat for their goal. Criminal with Kamara so close too.

Rant over. Apologies.

[irie Cee Bee]

Fabulous game of football. When I saw the team sheet, I was concerned about one thing. Jones over Iredale. My concerns manifested itself in the opening 10 mins. Kamara. I have watched him play before, and he is dangerous and pacey. Toal was covering Ogbeta too deep, and Kamara was able to exploit that twice in the opening resulting in one goal. Iredale would have done better having been used to playing with Ogbeta.

We settled after that and played some wonderful football against a strong team. Santos..what can I say.. he was outstanding and put away the ghost of the match in December against them. He dominated the Pompey forwards, and to hear that he was playing through pain , that was some performance. He is back to his best.

To a man, we played well. Our ball carriers, Ogbeta, Maghoma were scary and we attacked. At one point I thought the gods were not with us, when shot after shot in the 18 yards was being desparately blocked and would not go in.

Collins goal was acrobatically magnificent. No other player on the field could have scored that. Thomasson I thought was outstanding, and he has now learned to be effective wothout diving in and getting cards.

I thought Evatt would have made some changes in the 55-60 mins period when we last a bit of the tempo. I was hoping for Jerome to come in for DadBod so that we could give Pompey a different threat. Dadbod tried hard and played well, but had a rush of blood with his 2 chances. These things happen and I hope the partnership with Collins continue in the future. Good to see Charles back. He will need a few games off the bench to be match sharp again.

All in all, a good performance. My mind was already on the playoffs with 6 matches to go, so I am not disappointed. I dont see any othe side stopping us the way we are playing. I fully expect us to be promoted.

[Worthy4England]

Easy for me to say with hindsight, and entirely speculative, but I do wonder whether we’d have given ourselves a better chance of winning with different substitutions.

Charles I’d have brought on for Bod much earlier and probably have left Collins on. Sheehan and Maghoma I’d have kept on until the end unless they were extremely tired, and Williams I’d also have brought on much sooner.

I concede that Ian’s knowledge of, and experience in, football far exceeds my own, but as an armchair observer I do feel his in-game management is perhaps an area that could be improved.

I thought the same. When they did their triple sub, that was like +30% fresh legs in the outfield. I thought we should have gone shortly after to match. But we have a plan.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

I'm hearing that was our 109th goal this season?

Aye, in all comps - apparently only Toddy's 96/97 team have scored more. Across the 92 this season, only Liverpool and City have scored more. But...

Why is the distribution so off? Seems pretty shit that we spank Oxford 5 nil and couldn't hit a cows arse with a banjo yesterday.

I hate to raise the term "flat-track bullies," but perhaps if I do we'll score five at Posh. Again. After all, they shipped five to Oxford yesterday.

I do think that we have proven ourselves a class above several teams this season. That's understandable in the cases of some heavily-conceding oppos – United's kids (8), Harrogate (5), Solihull Moors (4), Relegation-Haunted Carlisle (4). Nowt wrong with that - you can only beat your oppos on the day, and often we've cried out for Evatt teams to put oppos to the sword. They've done that.

Some big-scoring victories don't belong in that camp, though. Reading (5), you could nitpick and say they're mainly kids - but they'd won their previous two games so they weren't whipping boys. Exeter (7) were on bad form but they're not drop-dodgers. Oxford (5) have since gone WDWWW, scoring 13 without reply in the last three alone.

The discrepancy is that we have had disappointing results against the last four teams I've mentioned. Carlisle did us 3-1 at home - somewhat freakishly, but there we are. At Reading we collapsed late on to lose from a goal up. At Exeter we collapsed from a goal up at half time to go behind and have to salvage a draw. At Oxford in a big sixpointer we had the better chances (Dion with a couple he might have gobbled up).

There is definitely a brilliance and a brittleness to us. They surface in different measures at different times. The mix will eventually define our season.