Portsmouth coach Jon Harley admitted his side were disappointed to only be leading Bristol City by a single goal at half-time having dominated the opening 45 minutes against the Robins.
Liam Manning’s side missed the opportunity to register consecutive Championship wins for the first time this season as they were comfortably beaten 3-0 by Championship strugglers Portsmouth at Fratton Park on Saturday afternoon.
Colby Bishop gave John Mousinho’s side the lead midway through the first half as the Pompey forward saw his initial effort well saved by Max O’Leary, but reacted quicker than any City defender to score at the second time of asking.
Although the Robins never really got going in the difficult conditions produced by Storm Darragh, Manning’s Reds produced their best spell of the game towards the end of the first half as Anis Mehmeti and Max Bird came close to levelling things up. Even with that small period of control, Pompey assistant Harley, who stood in for the suspended Mousinho, felt his side should have been home and dry at half-time.
“Especially taking into account the conditions, it just felt like a really professional 97-minute performance,” Harley told the BBC post-match. “The Swansea game last week we maybe got 47 minutes in the first half and then maybe struggled but today it felt like there was a real consistency about us and we saw the game through so it was great for everyone.
“The key message on the bench that we’re trying to get onto the players was we need to score if we’re dominating a game like this because you don’t usually maintain that for the full duration of the game so we had to score. I think one of the disappointments was going in at half-time at 1-0 when we felt we’d controlled the first 45 minutes but fortunately, in the second half we did maintain the performance and the timing of the goal in the second half was really key as well and we saw it over the line.”
Any momentum that Bristol City had built in the final exchanges of the first half was quickly lost when the game restarted after half-time. Once again, the Reds were immediately on the back foot as individual errors gifted the home side several opportunities to extend their lead further and had it not been for O’Leary, the scoreline could have been even more damning.
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In the end, Portsmouth’s pressure told and Josh Murphy doubled Pompey’s lead as he slotted under O’Leary having picked Jason Knight’s pocket on the edge of the Reds’ penalty area before Callum Lang secured all three points as he tapped in Murphy’s cross at the back post just minutes later.
The win sees Mousinho’s side climb off of the foot of the Championship table and move above Hull City. Although Pompey remain in the relegation zone, they have a game in hand on the teams around them and a win could see them leapfrog Cardiff City, Plymouth Argyle and QPR to move out of the bottom three. Although there is still a lot of football to be played, Harley believes Pompey are beginning to build momentum in their survival bid.
“I think probably the last five, six games the performances have been there, but we’re sort of starting to turn it a bit now to get the results to back it up as well,” the assistant coach admitted post-match. “It’s just momentum and this week now we’ve got a game Tuesday and a game Friday, a lot of games in a short space of time and we need to make sure we keep that momentum and keep that energy.”