I don't see the situation as a whole as bleak. Today is our worst league result in years though imo. Team need to make it up to us in the coming weeks.
Some of the comments are a bit disingenuous towards Portsmouth. We were chasing shadows for most of the first half and no attempts on goal. If their last ball had been better, they would have wrapped up the game by the interval. Definitely 2 points dropped by Portsmouth and chance of an easy away win thrown away. The new full back was humiliated by Portsmouth's attack. As I said previously, Murphy was the star of the show. A bit surprised to read the comments about Ross Stewart. I think he is garbage. The forwards issue remains and the opportunity to blood Downs in English football has been wasted by not loaning him out until January. Just think we still have the same issues as before . Even though we were better in the first half , Portsmouth still had the better opportunities and Murphy was unlucky his shot was just wide. I think some here should fess up that we were second best to a Portsmouth side that were not at the top of their game in 2nd half. As I said, a fair result but one which could have been far worse for Saints. A home win was never on the cards.
I don't think there can be many excuses for today. It was dire. If you can't pump yourself up for a Derby game then something is wrong. My excuse is that whilst this is not the sacred Premier league, it's tough, Leicester found that against Oxford, WBA against Derby yesterday. We should be doing better though, we have work to do. I know we have been a patient bunch but it is now the team really need to feel our support. Edit. And it could be worse. We could be Man Utd
Agreed. It's bitter. Reality is we were much better first half, and you guys were much better second half. Neither good enough to get a goal, hence the draw.
Agree that we easily could have been out the game by HT. They lacked quality in the final third luckily for us.
I think Fraser worked hard. Everything going forward in the second half seemed to involve him. I agree one shot on target is terrible. The only excuse is that we have new players and Still is relatively new. As you know I think SR are terrible and want them out, but I’m not calling for stills head yet. If we’re turning out these performances in December then maybe. If SR get us promoted again then my opinion of them will go up to meh-to-poor, rather than atrocious.
This is an overreaction. The Stoke performance was worse. For me, the expectations have been ridiculously high to begin with. This thread has been an echo chamber which quickly lost sight of the reality that we are effectively starting from scratch against a Portsmouth squad that has got it's mojo working after 12 month. Portsmouth are a year ahead of us in progress and the better footballing team. We will improve by the return fixture but today Portsmouth fans should be ruing what should have been an away win. Get over it. We are second best
An individual not begging for attention and validation on their rivals forum on derby day? You not out with the rest of your mates celebrating your 0-0 win? No horses to punch?
Top of that division it obviously isn't but the bottom half of the French league is probably very similar I'd say. The biggest difference with this job for Still is the increased pressure more than anything else imo.
Someone else made the point much earlier in the thread - sorry I forget who - that Still wants his players to think for themselves. Martin wanted the opposite. It is a genuine problem.
Today’s performance was bleak! And that’s unacceptable in my books given the magnitude of the game. We didn’t stand up to the occasion and completely bottled it. I’m still hopeful we’ll improve a lot from here, but today…all that counts was the derby and we completely failed to stand up to it.
