CITY 0 PORTSMOUTH 1
City's faltering play-off hopes were dealt a probably mortal blow at the Walkers on Saturday when we were well beaten by a far superior Portsmouth side who could easily have won more easily given that Ward missed an absolute sitter for them in the closing minutes. With the whole goal gaping he somehow managed to miss the target from the sort of distance my mother could still be a force at!
I don't know which hurt more, the loss of 3 precious points or the manner of the beating. We varied from mediocre to appalling and once Pompey had gone ahead there was only going to be one winner.
They have now conceded one goal in 8 matches and it will take a much better attack than ours to put a dent in that record. Vassell had odd moments of brilliance only to ruin all the good work with a wretched cross or misplaced pass.
The Yak lived up to his name lumbering about at times but normally static. He is not what we need to lead the attack and the crowd's patience with him is fast running out. Contrast all this with the Pompey front pairing of Kitson and Nugent who were a handful throughout, full of clever touches and simple movement off the ball.
The goal was a textbook example of how not to defend a long throw-in. Mee spent an eternity trying to find someone to mark and eventually marked no one – he is clearly not a left back by the way. You can work it out that if Mee marks no one some one must be unmarked and that someone was…….Nugent!! How can you leave a player of his calibre in acres of space at this level….
It gets worse, far worse! All will be well if your central defenders do their job and head the ball away. Unfortunately the attentions of Kitson proved too much for Bamba and Bruma and they failed the test.
One hope remains – that your keeper will come off his line and collect the ball or punch it away. Ricardo managed the first bit but never looked likely to manage the second. He too does not have the confidence of the crowd and this shambles illustrated why.
Ricardo, Bamba and Bruma managed to scramble the ball away to exactly where the unmarked Nugent was waiting. He had time to clean his boots and put them back on before nonchalently putting the ball in the net. An absolute gift! Compare this again with the other end of the pitch where the Pompey centre-backs headed away corner after corner as though shelling peas!
Effectively this ended the game. We were awful for the first 30 mins, as bad as we have been all season and not that much better for the rest of the game. We had only two real chances, one in each half.
In the first half King headed wide from our only decent cross in the entire game when he should have scored. He seemed to be short of energy and was off the pace throughout though he never gave up trying.
Later in the game a lucky rebound saw Gallagher in on their keeper who was quick off his line and blocked the shot. Gallagher is not a natural goalscorer in open play and I would have put my house on him not scoring in that situation! He had several opportunities to show off his Beckham-like right foot but on the evidence of this game Sven meant Victoria!
Difficult to pick out any City players who can look back on this match with any positive feelings. The most industrious were Wellens and Naughton, the latter incidentally having our best shot of the game late on. Bruma had a decent second half but promising youngsters will always find the going tough against seasoned pros with some ability.
Sven's substitutions made little difference as Dyer and Waghorn were virtually invisible. How Yakuba could have been given 90 mins remains a mystery. Does he have a secret clause in his contract?
Where we go from here is uncertain. I would reinstate Weale in goal, put Mee back at left centreback and bring in Berner at left back for starters. The defence used to be our stronger point but no longer and the crowd's nervousness when the opposition come over the halfway line is well founded. If we make the playoffs this season I'll lose my house!
City: Ricardo, Naughton, Bruma, Bamba, Mee, Abe (Dyer 61), Vassell (Waghorn 68), King, Wellens, Gallagher,Yakubu
Portsmouth: Ashdown, Halford, De Laet, Hreidarsson, Rocha, Lawrence, Mullins, Hogg, Cotterill (Ward 64), Nugent (Dickinson74), Kitson
The views expressed in this report are the opinions of the Trust member nominated to file the report only and do not represent the views of the Foxes Trust organisation