Three at the back, plus wing backs doesn't appear to be working for us, does it ? Why, oh why, did we not start the match with Nigel Atangana in midfield ? We were being totally outmuscled by an average Mansfield side, whose tactics appeared to depend on hoofing the ball upfield to a veritable giant of a striker in 6' 4", Matt "20 stone of unsightly fat" Rhead who easily (legally or otherwise) pushed Pompey players out of his way to head the ball. Atangana and Big Pat when they came on for Ertl & Drennan changed the game around, and at long last we started attacking with a vengeance, to equalize. Too little, too late methinks. We lost it in midfield. Miles Storey or Rickie Holmes should have started the match to give us width. A point is a point, but overall, not a good day at the office to my mind. As someone said after the final whistle, you will not win promotion from this division playing nice quality football - not when you are being bullied by the opposition in every game.
Nigel Atangana is a very promising midfielder - strong, skillful and will only get better. We need more strong players like him and James Dunne to get us promotion.
Is Nige actually match fit? We did a lot better with a 4-2-3-1 formation. Why is AA stubbornly sticking with 3-5-2? It isn't working.
Different formations don't work with a average team just self belief and team unity. Of course buying better players would, but then best not go down that road again.
Some formations work better than others if the players are played in the positions which suit them best. It's like square peg and round hole, under Richie Barker the players just looked confused. I can see us buying some better players now, now that we're free of all historical debts - but the board will only allow any Manager to spend what's available - we actually paid H&W for Nigel Atangana - but never to the extent that we saw before.
Was travelling so didn't get to the game but on the radio we sounded awful first half - and yes agree that we need to stop being bullied out of games - pace and power will get us out Lge 2 - we can play nice footy against some teams but the bulk of them will just not let us get away with that. Look at the teams who go up from Lge 2 and usually 2 out of 4 do it with big burly direct squads - sad but true...and I think at the mo Bury have the nice football spot with a few others like us trying for the other.
was one of the worse games I have seen in a while, created little to nothing in the first half, and then did our usual come out for the second half asleep and concede in 40 seconds, there were a couple of incidents that could have swung the game in our favour with fatty rhead, he should have been sent off after several rash challenges, the last being on Ertl who he clearly and needlessly clattered into the hordings! Putting that aside, this pompey squad should not be relying on the ref to make decisions as invariably they don't, especially ion front of 16K screaming fans! I have to keep reminding myself that as good as these players should be on paper, they all came on frees or minimum fees as no one else wanted them, exceptions on a couple..........there is still lots to be done on infrastructure to get them back up and playing and we are still training in temporary digs until the new set up is finished, all this has a bearing on the well being of the players in my book and i feel sure once settled we will see a strong second half to the season.
