Match Details

Branch

Referee: D R Crick (Worcester Park)

Reports

Lineup:

Niko

Armstrong Weller Davis Thomas

Little Ball Cook Branch

Moore Taylor

Portsmouth played one (Mills) up front all match, with two very advanced wingers, and pushed 5 into midfield. The Clarets lineup felt therefore curiously imbalanced at the back with Thomas at leftback and Armstrong the spare man.

From an entertainment point of view it was very thin stuff indeed. The clarets looked like the side higher up the table, and the team playing at home, and had a big share of possession in the first half. After Mills had missed a header from a corner approximately 6 inches away from the goal-line, Pompey looked desperately short of confidence, quick on the break but unable to get into the box. Incidentally, I thought Weller defended very well indeed in the first half.

Little provided Burnley's best chances but his crossing was again poor, wasting some great possession on the byeline. I can't actually think of a chance we had (I'll define chance as "accurate shooting opportunity within scoring distance" for argument's sake). On the other wing Branch just didn't look interested.

Things dribbled on in the same vein till half time, the crowd desperately cold and not bothering to sing because the lack of a roof just meant that the sound disappeared. Igor appeared at half time and concurred with our view that there was nothing to beat here.

It all disintegrated in the second half. Whatever Rix's other faults he could see that Cook was the main playmaker and instructed his spare man in midfield to close him down at every opportunity. The result was that we were reduced to pumping the ball up to Taylor who couldn't keep it, usually because Moore was half the length of the pitch away, and the ball just came back.

With the first ten minutes of the half gone Portsmouth took Ball completely out of the game by the cunning ruse of passing the ball round him, Thomas was beaten on the turn and the ball was cut back to NIGHTINGALE who obviously took heed of his manager's instruction to hit the ball a bit harder as he found the top right corner of the net.

Predictably, although BFC forced a couple of corners and had another cross or two, it was Portsmouth who gained a penalty of dubious virtue, Armstrong careering towards the striker in ungainly fashion and the striker quick to lose his footing. 2-0 with PANOPOULOS the scorer (?), and not much to say about the last 20 minutes. At least it was good to see Cox and Briscoe back after the horse had bolted.

THOUGHTS

One thought really and it's that we need to get back to boring football asap in my opinion. We don't look like scoring much (I realised I haven't seen them score since Birmingham!) and can't hold the ball too well, so clamping down on the silly mistakes now that we have a full strength back 5 is a matter of priority.

Moore barely got the ball all match, but I couldn't tell whether this was down to good marking, poor attacking or just rank bad service (I suspect the latter).

Things don't look great away from home. Pompey really were there for the taking in the first half and we let them off the hook, something we won't be able to afford next season now that we're a known quantity.

UTC Steve

Errors? Comments? Opinions to add to this page? Mail us!