Storm Darragh caused disruption to the sporting calendar in the UK over the weekend and how I wish that the EFL, Portsmouth FC and Bristol City FC had taken the decision to postpone our game on Saturday. Sadly, it went ahead, and we went on to put in our most abject and inept performance of the season so far. I honestly think this was worse than the second half at Derby or the Blackburn Rovers away game.
Massive credit goes to every Bristol City fan who made the journey to Fratton Park on Saturday. Most fans weren’t sure if the game would go ahead or if it was even safe to travel, especially after receiving multiple emergency alerts to mobile phones from the government on Friday evening and the early hours of Saturday morning.
Trains were cancelled and fans had to find alternative routes to get to the game, with at least a couple of groups of supporters getting Uber Taxis to the game at a cost of over £400 there and back. That is true commitment. Fellow fans offered lifts to those who couldn’t get there by train and I believe the club even organised an extra coach. Huge kudos to everyone involved.
We made the trip by road and whilst we did come across a few fallen trees on the journey and the conditions at times were a little sketchy, we made it to Fratton Park in good time. We parked up and then made our way to the local away fans-recommended pub. Most of the talk before the game was about the travel disruption and just how fans had actually made the trip.
There was a general feeling that Liam Manning would opt for the same starting line-up as last time out against Plymouth Argyle but when the clock ticked around to 2pm, we discovered that Scott Twine had been ill during the week and was unable to make the game. Fit-again Marcus McGuane was Twine’s replacement with Max Bird moving again to the number 10 role.
Ex-City stalwart Marlon Pack, now Portsmouth captain, had played the last few games at centre-half and with no disrespect to Marlon, some of us felt he could be got at with pace, so there was a question as to whether the physical presence and speed of Sinclair Armstrong might have been the right call to start in place of Nahki Wells, but Liam Manning went with just the one change.
I’d been asked during the week to give a Bristol City fan’s perspective on the season so far, along with answers to some other pertinent questions by the Portsmouth programme, more on that later. I’d already bought my ticket for the away end but as a thank you for answering the questions, I was afforded the opportunity to watch the game from the press area in the media section of the Portsmouth Upper South Stand. I normally like to watch the game from the away end and my season ticket at home is in the South Stand but this opportunity gave me the chance to watch a game from the halfway line and having been to Fratton Park a few times over the years, I thought I would take advantage of the view and be able to see both ends of the pitch equally as well.
I said before the game that I felt Portsmouth’s position at the bottom of the league was somewhat false and their performances by all accounts had been far better than their points tally. With the weather conditions also being somewhat of a leveller, we needed to make sure that we were at it. As Manning is often at pains to say, there are no easy games in the Championship, and we couldn’t afford to take Portsmouth lightly, especially knowing the Pompey faithful are renowned for creating an intimidating atmosphere for the opposition when they get going.
Unfortunately, the sad truth of the game was that we never got going. We had a few bright spells throughout, but I felt that we never got to grips with the conditions and we weren’t alert to the way that John Mousinho had set his side up to play. They set traps for us knowing how we like to play out from the back. They pressed us into making uncharacteristic mistakes and we were second-best in all elements of the game.
In Colby Bishop, Portsmouth had the stand-out player and somewhat of a throwback to an old number nine. Bishop’s aerial prowess, his ability to hold the ball up and bring others into play and his willingness to close the ball down really caught the eye. On top of that, he added a goal threat and if Portsmouth can keep him fit, I honestly think they will be too strong to end up in the relegation places at the end of the season.
I was surprised knowing how Portsmouth counter-act teams who like to play in the style that we do, that we didn’t alter our game plan. We could have mixed it up a little and should have certainly looked to have gone a little more direct. The ironic thing is that according to the statistics at the end of the game, we won more of the duels. It just didn’t feel like that. This wasn’t a case of smash and grab, I felt that Portsmouth bullied us, and outfought us, but they also played some decent football and were well worthy of their 3-0 victory.
Early bookings for Rob Dickie and Cameron Pring won’t have helped our cause and I thought that referee Sunny Singh Gill was weak throughout the game. I hate it when referees are clearly influenced into making decisions by the crowd which in my view seemed to be the case with Gill. I’m not making excuses, I thought he was poor for both sides, and it wasn’t because of Gill we lost the game.
At this level, you can just about afford to have a couple of players who have off games. When you have five or six players off the pace, you will struggle to get a point let alone win the game. We didn’t just have players having off games, I honestly think that Luke McNally, Dickie, McGuane and in particular Jason Knight had their worst games in a Bristol City shirt. I mentioned the programme earlier and one of the questions was “Who are the in-form Robins players capable of causing Pompey plenty of problems this afternoon?” My response was that Knight has probably been the standout player in central midfield. Jason certainly stood out.
He has been excellent this season and in fact, since he signed, but he had a day forget. The Colby Bishop opener was a calamity and as fans, we can debate and agree to disagree on who was most at fault. Dickie could have played the ball wide rather than going back to Max O’Leary, Max could have kicked long rather than playing the ball into Knight who was immediately under pressure and of course, Jason’s touch could have been better.
It’s the way that we like to play, drawing the opposition on and opening space to get further up the pitch but I question if it was the right tactic in those conditions, especially knowing how Portsmouth set these pressing traps. We got it wrong and suffered the consequences. Liam talked about making the right decisions after the game and was clearly referencing the first goal.
We did create openings but didn’t take them and then shot ourselves in the foot with another similar goal. Dickie’s ball into Knight was poor. It was the wrong option and Knight in turn lost the ball to a strong challenge before Josh Murphy punished us with a fine finish, having seen an earlier opportunity thwarted by a fine O’Leary save. Just to make us feel even worse, the third Pompey goal was just as shambolic. Zak Vyner who has been excellent of late was lacklustre and showed a lack of desire to stop the cross from coming in and McNally and O’Leary were like the Chuckle Brothers, ‘to me, to you’ in terms of deciding who should go for the ball, allowing Callum Lang a simple tap-in.
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It was a shocker of a day and after the trials and tribulations of so many in the away end, it was the type of performance, desire and application that they absolutely didn’t deserve. The players owe them one for that and hopefully can put in a positive shift and get a win away at Sunderland on Tuesday.
For all the many positives of this season, we sit in our normal mid-table position and are still yet to win back-to-back games. Whilst I do think this game was an anomaly in terms of performance, we must win more games. If we don’t, midtable obscurity will once again be our fate.
A word on Pack, despite my initial thoughts that we could get at Marlon, I’m not sure he will have many more comfortable afternoons. Marlon has always been a bright footballer on the ball, and he used all his nous to help nullify our attacks and played a captain’s role in seeing his team home to victory.
Our 3 Peaps In A PodCast player rating were Max O’Leary 5.5 *MotM, Zak Vyner 4.5, Luke McNally 4, Rob Dickie 4, Cameron Pring 4.5, Jason Knight 4, Max Bird 5, Yu Hirakawa 5.5, Marcus McGuane 4.5, Anis Mehmeti 5 and Nahki Wells 5.
For the substitutes who must play a minimum of 20 minutes (including injury time), we went with George Earthy 5 and Sinclair Armstrong 5. A game average player rating of 4.73. Performance-wise I think it was lower than that but that’s how the ratings came out.
That’s an overall season-to-date average player rating of 6.25. For Liam Manning, it was 4.0. We got the game plan wrong in the conditions and maybe even the selection upfront. The substitutions didn’t have enough of an impact. Can we please just forget about this one and quickly move on.