Absolutely gutless performance with and without the ball. No bollocks, outfought, let the ref have a lovely old time giving us very little, absolutely **** all in midfield, the goalkeeper couldn’t kick the ball in a straight line, no movement off the ball, no set pieces, lost most second balls, late subs, Harrison ****ing Ashby. Feared the worst when I saw Field and Varane in midfield without Morgan. Both incapable of receiving the ball and passing it ten yards.
7 days since our last match including 3 days off for the players. Should have been well rested and full of confidence after the Derby demolition. Then we come out and play like that. Utterly turd performance all round today. Disappointing.
Referees generally want an easy life. We allowed him one being nice and quiet while they kicked the **** out of us. No leadership as Cook was occupied enough not falling over his own shoelaces.
Really poor advert for Championship football Constant hoof ball from the off by Portsmouth but after conceding we switched to that too - largely ineffective against a pretty sold Pompey back line Not sure why Marti waited so long to make our first batch of subs
Doesn't sound as if I missed a classic...... Had a lovely lunch and the sun was shining..... almost spring like..... the quiet before the next deluge tonight and tomorrow. On to next week against Blades....
There's just no consistency in the team, we lurch from the sublime to the ridiculous. We've gone from being great away and turd at home to being decent at home and ****e away. Just can't understand El Cif's tactics half the time now, either the players aren't listening to his instructions or he's getting it badly wrong at least half the time. Play like that against Sheffield and we'll get mullered !
Missed following the game today as we were off swimming 1km (40 laps x 25m) and visiting friends. Good choice, hopefully you put your money where your mouth is and made some dough. So our former dud scored a goal, set up a goal and almost added a 3rd?
He didn’t score. Murphy looks a bit like him. I see he got the assist but I had about as much to do with it as he did. Missed a sitter at 2-0.
The movement wasn't there, the work rate was missing, tactically inept, poor decision making etc etc. The ball was in the air more than it was in the deck. We seem to sit so deep, every single man behind the ball. The 3 behind Frey might aswell be on another pitch somewhere. I do think Marti over concentrates on what the opposition may do, rather than on what we can/could do. A very poor advert for football in general. He even tried to throw the game by bringing on Ashby!!!
Did chuckle at the Ashby sub at the time. Arguably our best player on the day (a low bar) gets a whack and you’ve got 10 minutes chasing the game at 2-1 with a choice of Morgan, Dembele and Ashby and he makes that choice. Was a bizarre day all round from our Lord and saviour. Naive team selection, late subs, Ashby. Hope Strolls enjoyed it.
I got the feeling that he saw how Pompey would play and would try replicate it. Cook has been piss poor since he came back from injury too but you know it's time to switch off when Ashby comes on. He's like the Tasmanian devil, just zooms about making things worse.
It’s hard not playing a lot and trying to have an impact for the odd ten minutes here and there but he’s a dismal footballer. Newcastle paid £3m for him. Felt the game was crying out for Morgan and from half-time rather than the 80th minute. I guess he’d rightly argue with the subs already made it wasn’t really the time to re-jig the whole team but I’d make a case for putting Walsh at right-back over that prick.
I didn't watch it, but it certainly seems like we were very poor. I take no pleasure in **** football.
Have to agree about Cook, always looked a tad overweight, however has ballooned in his enforced absence. Seems like Marti has to play him if vaguely fit. Him and Dunne covering the right side of the defence is scary. Would like to see Morriston and Sexy guy playing together, can see this as our future(obvs need to be able to buy him 1st)