Pompey attacking again, work the ball into the box Lowe gets a show away which the keeper saves. Out for a corner
Lowe takes it round the keeper, holds off the challenge of the defender and gets the ball across the box where Pittman is waiting to tap it into an empty net. Pompey 3 - 0 Oxford.
Pompey freekick and it's kicking off again as Ledson and Close go head to head. The ref has a quiet word with them. No cards.
Pompey out of the right, play a long ball into the box that goes out for a goal kick. Pompey sub: May on, Thompson off.
Thomson put Pompeys reputation in the gutter. The Club should give him a three match ban for his behaviour. As for his reaction when "slapped" - what a pussy.
Agreed. Maybe not a three match ban, but certainly some kind of disciplinary action. A fine would be appropriate. Doubt it will happen though, there's not much integrity in football.
Match was televised live Downunder but I recorded it and watched it in the morning. I have to say a flattering result. I thought Clarke was lucky not to be penalised when he had his arms all over the defender before he headed back across goal for Naismith's opener so there was a level of poetic justice in the penalty. Thompson was very lucky not to see a second yellow when he provoked the red card for Oxford. After the penalty Pompey played 11 vs 10 very well. I was amazed to see The Snooze give Thompson man of the match. We failed to control the mid field both in and out of possession. Out of possession Thompson appeared to always be likely to get a second yellow. While he does provide 'bite' I wonder if his discipline problems may be less exposed at right back (where he is definitely better than Walkes). In possession it seemed the midfielders were given very little clean possession from clearances. Their lack of influence seemed to be because they were being bypassed rather their own failure. Given Oxford's domination of possession for long periods the back four and the goalkeeper certainly did well. The keeper made two or three excellent saves and will saviour his clean sheet. However, a couple of times he failed to attack crosses within the six yard box which could have been costly. The Pompey highlight was the Lowe - pitman combination for the goals. All of the above is a very negative opinion of a 3-0 win but I'm afraid it is the way I saw it.
Well done MAJR - good commentary - PDU it is interesting to compare what the TV shows vs being there. From the North bank it looked like we bossed the first 20 mins and looked comfortable but then they started to threaten in attack - couple of very smart saves from McGee kept us ahead. I thought they looked good going forward but we hoovered up most of it pretty well - in midfield I think our central pairing often are asked to cover a lot of ground and sometimes get dragged out wide. The 60 seconds of indiscipline after the penalty cost them getting anything from the game at a time they looked most threatening. The incident in real time looked like a quick hand/fist to the face so him going down looked believable, obviously having seen it since he milked it beyond belief. I take your point re manhandling in the box but they were consistently grappling with Pitman & Naismith so I figured one side or another would get a penalty. Overall we punished them with the extra man and looked worthy winners. They weren't awful but they weren't overly good either.
