Round 1 of 4 decent consecutive games guaranteed to go the distance. Of course there are no easy games.
The form book suggests we should win this first encounter. Portsmouth have had a steady but faltering start. Last time out they thrashed then league leaders Sunderland and according to the march reports they outplayed them everywhere. An off day ? An on day ?
Portsmouth have a rich history.
FA cup winners.
League one perennials
Premiership pedigree
They are also not short of basement blues . Many a financial crisis . Top flight managerial shenanigans and exotic owners.
Now in their 5th L1 season (division 3) after winning the L2 (division 4 ) title in 2017 after 4 seasons, serendipitously becoming one of a handful of clubs to win all 4 league titles.
Following the sacking of the Southern softy and comic genius Kenny jackett, to replace him with not one but two in the form of the cowley brothers they continue to slowly rise like a good Yorkshire pud . Its fair to say they have improved things but Portsmouth are still half a dozen seasons away from being solid Championship challengers and that's if no-one takes a peak inside the oven to see how well the puds are coming on ( schoolboy error).
Often employing a 3-5-2 with a few dynamic changes ( the cowleys love to tinker to earn their crust) this could be an open encounter where the battle will be fought on the front foot. Portsmouth might lack some of their usual width with ROI international Ronan Curtis suspended.
Team news.
We should have everyone bar lindsay and mcdonald available. Mattock has made a ressurection like recovery and with what seems like no injuries picked up by the international trio PW has his strongest side to muse over.
Prediction.
3-1
-- Edited by ian on Thursday 14th of October 2021 01:41:50 PM
Great news for us if Curtis is suspended. He is a very important player for them. Should be a good game. Pompey have had an indifferent start but they wont be far away from the top six come May.
Looking forward to this one. Last time the Cowley's were at NYS they did a job on us with a pretty average Lincoln side. Let's hope we've learned some lessons since then. If we can restart the form we had before the international break, we could be in for a cracking game and hopefully 3 points!
I think it is fair to say that Portsmouth fans will be disappointed with the start they have made. 12th in the league with 15pts. However, there are signs that they are improving. Scoring four against Sunderland is the obvious one. Before that game they had scored only ten goals in ten games.
Portsmouth will possibly play 3:4;1:2 but it could be in doubt now Curtis is not available. Marcus Harness is a good player in this league and has had some success in the number ten role recently. He can also play as a right winger and could replace Curtis in that role. At the back they have the very slow Raggett as the central of a back three. Robertson is out till christmas (what a shock) and they will miss his left side balance he brings and his experience. They won't miss his lack of pace though.
I am pretty sure we will go 3:5:2. The back three as usual is the hardest to select. With a rough and tough Wycombe coming on Tuesday do we save Wood for that game?. I would go with Wood today and see what he is like on Monday as to whether we select him for the Wycombe game. My team would be providing all internationals have returned fit.
There was that first 25 minutes we saw against other teams with a crowded midfield but it took us a lot longer to start to get on top today. They started better I thought and played some nice football out on both wings looking for and getting space there with nice triangles and plenty of times they got behind us.
I was pleased to go in 1 nil.
Barlasar made that pretty poor error and boom ! We got punished. He will be the happiest man tonight thanks to some great effort and skill in that blitzkrieg.
Cheio looked like he believed he was unbeatable and he pretty much was. I loved how he came inside and danced through 2 and 3 players several times. Maybe that more central role he got in the internationals revealed something about his game.
Smith was brilliant again. That second goal was a killer for them. It came very soon after their equaliser and rocked them. Boom! Boom! 2 more. That was a great period and their keeper produced some very good saves.
Grigg didn't get a goal but his instinct to be in the right place and cause panic was instrumental.
Wiles finish was par excellence.
Bravo!
-- Edited by ian on Saturday 16th of October 2021 08:20:42 PM
Great game and great result. Special mention for Wes Harding who was called on to play on both the right and left and did really well following a few dubious recent performances. Two beautiful crosses from Barlaser for goals cancelled out his error for theirs. And that man Rathbone - has there ever been such a good engine in a Rotherham player? Chieo made the difference when he came on and we never looked back. Great day!!
And a word about Portsmouth. Marquis - waste of space - the Pompey fans think they were sold a £2M pup who they'll be saddled with as no-one else will want him. George Hirst - why is he still trying to play football when he is obviously not a footballer?! Raggett - on that performance, pleased we didn't manage to sign him. He's like poor man's Richard Wood (who was excellent again). Robertson - still attending the sick bay more than the pitch - so predictable. The guy who scored their goal looked useful but was lucky to avoid a yellow on a couple of occasions. And finally, the keeper - dropped more balls than Blackman! Lower/mid table finish for them I predict.
A bright start from Portsmouth but in the end they were overpowered. Michael Smith must be loving this new role as a goal machine after years of doing all the hard work and not being a prolific scorer. Good for him. Its great to see Ben Wiles on the scoresheet again. I agree about Ollie Rathbone - he is consistently excellent. I havent always been convinced by Mikkel Miller but I thought he was very good today - he is really coming on as a player. The beauty of our squad is that a player like Miller can come in and play so well today but we have Ferguson who might come back in on Tuesday and he also has real quality to offer. All good!
I thought Portsmouth had been the better team until we scored. I spoke about the spine of our team being so important a while ago. In Wood, Rathbone and Smith we have a good spine for this league. Add to that two quality midfield players in Wiles and Barlaser and four wide players who can all do a good job and we are well on the way to being as good as anybody in this league. It looks like Ihiekwe will be out for a while and this is the area we can least afford to have people missing. I would imagine Mattock will come in as the left sided defender of a back three and although mattock has been a great servant for us he is not ideal to face up to the demands of Wycombe on Tuesday. The other option is to use Harding. He has struggled with this position at times so i think i would go with Mattock, with Ferguson in front of him.
Ogbene is the ace in our pack. He came on yesterday and although his final ball still needs improving he gives us something different wide right. i agree with Smiler about Miller and he is putting some good games together. Grigg and ladapo will compete for the second striker role and when involved need to get into scoring positions and take them. Atm i think Grigg is the best option. Kayode's time will come but probably not this season.
I thought the twenty minutes after they scored was our best period of play this season. I know that is stating the obvious but it shows we are not this big physical hoof ball side that we have been labelled. We still need to mix it up as that is what this league is all about. Different demands needed on Tuesday. I now believe Wood has to play and will play.
Think starting witth 2 wing backs gave Portsmouth more space to pass it around and we were second best early in the game but once we were back in front our better quality showed. Hear Warne sent the police up to someone booing taking the knee shortly after ko. No matter what your opinion may be on this subject booing is not an offence and the manager should be remaining neutral on this matter.
Completely disagree Splinter, it's totally disrespectful & out of order, creates a toxicity that is nasty & could be classed as racist which everyone in football is committed to eliminate.
Every stadium has rules in which compliance is a par requisite for admission & booing breaks these rules.
I cant believe that anyone is in favour of injustice so the booing makes no sense to me. Football clubs are at the heart of communities and work hard behind the scenes on these issues. If the players want to show their feelings on the subject in line with club policy for about five seconds then at the very least respect their right to do so. That's what I think.
Only the person booing knows their own motivation for doing so. Some of them might be racist. Some might want the match to be about nothing but football and might be booing the fact that there is any non-football activity going on. Having said that, I suspect those same people wont be booing the last post in a couple of weeks time so I suspect there might be an element of the former involved in at least some cases.
Anyway, as much as it grates me I would say that provided they arent spouting racism or committing some other offence, then people have the right to boo whenever they want however ridiculous it might be, and the police have no business getting involved.
I dont know the facts of this particular incident so wont comment on it.
-- Edited by smiler on Sunday 17th of October 2021 07:34:37 PM
Smiler sums it up perfectly,Brad. By the way i don't condone the booing but maybe it's driven by the frustrated belief that the gesture has run its course and everyone has now got the message.
