FAN’S VIEW 21/22 – NO.34

PORTSMOUTH AT HOME

Our opponents

As is oft mentioned, there are quite a few “big” clubs playing in the third tier of English football, clubs who probably rightly think their natural resting place is somewhat higher up the pyramid. Debatable of course if there is such a thing as a natural resting place and if there was and teams tended to gravitate to and hover around that point on the scale, this game of ours would be all the more boring for it.

Pompey were in the Premier League in 2009/10 then two years later lost their place in the Championship and are yet to return to that level. This is their fifth consecutive season in L1. They’re without doubt a “big” L1 club with a “big” fan base.

This season they’ve had spells of good and bad form. Ten points from the first 12 available. Then just six from the next 30 followed by an unbeaten run of nine which netted 21 points. Onto their current form which is one point from the last four games. Hope this continues obviously. They’re twelve points behind us at the start of play but do have two games in hand.

Forget the closed window

Sam Baldock being a free agent just walked through the door.  To be honest I know very little about him other than he is the brother of George, is fairly local, has been transferred for a few million quid a few times and has scored goals over the years at Championship level. What type of a striker/front man he is I have not a clue but guess I will find out over the coming weeks. I don’t think he’s a 90 minute man but wonder how this signing will impact on the amount of game time the improving Sam Winnall will now get.

Interesting.

OXFORD UNITED 3 PORTSMOUTH 2

A week ago those of us at Priestfield witnessed our biggest ever away goals tally in a Football League game and the first time ever a player has scored four penalties in English professional football in a single game.

After that one could be forgiven for expecting the next few games to be rather more run of the mill fare but I suspect there is a good chance we saw new records here too. Not so easy to verify but perhaps those with encyclopaedic knowledge will know.

The most cards an opposition team has ever received against us? Portsmouth got eight, seven yellows and that red.

Add on the four yellows we got and could twelve cards be the highest for a game we have ever played in?

And have we ever had a longer half time break? Will we ever know what really happened?

Even putting all this to one side we’re still left with a football match that will live long in the memory.

Whenever Portsmouth visit they bring a large passionate following who get behind their side. Their full allocation of tickets will have been snapped up in a trice and this is for a team that don’t look like they’ll be able to make the play-offs. At no time here did they get on the backs of their players and the volume from the away section never dropped even on the three occasions when their team conceded. Their perceived injustice when Joe Morrell was dismissed after a quarter of an hour may have helped influence this defiant backing.

They still seem to be pro Danny Cowley who I’ll be honest is a manager I think is likely to have peaked at Lincoln where the timing and the fit of what he had to offer was perfect. Since he’s been manager at Fratton Park the number of wins and defeats he’s achieved are the same.

The clock on the scoreboard had yet to move on to two minutes when twice blue shirts had fouled Oxford players – Mark Sykes and Ryan Williams – to stop us getting any early flow. Over committed, deliberate or exactly what a manager would want his players to do is for each observer to decide.

Billy Bodin can deliver testing corners and when a team contains tall centre-halves who are willing to attack those balls into the danger zone between the six yard box and the penalty spot, the likelihood of a goal resulting is greatly increased. Luke McNally, 1-0. The visitors will blame it all on poor marking and it is true no one challenged our number 16. Some will blame the keeper for not coming but in such congestion that is very difficult. But we don’t care it was a start we were well happy with.

That elation didn’t last long and four minutes later it was the fans in the North Stand closest to the car park who were rocking.

It was a Pompey player who got a flick on to a long free-kick launched by keeper Gavin Bazunu on loan from Man City. Pains me to say it but the back heel by Ronan Curtis to keep the ball in play was sublime. He found Kieron Freeman whose square pass across goal set up Michael Jacob for a tap in it was almost impossible to miss. Not great defending by us by any means but having seen a replay not quite as bad as I thought at the time.

Just a few minutes further into the game came the incident which changed the way it was going to be played and which the visitors were furious about.

Photo, Simon Jaggs

With almost everything that happens on a football pitch, replays shed more light on what actually happened. Without the benefit of VAR referees have to make a judgement based on one viewing from whatever angle they’ve created for themselves. At the time I thought there was nothing overtly deliberate about Morrell’s challenge and although Cameron Brannagan did dip his head to try and get the ball the debate near me was should it be just a free-kick or a yellow card too? A sideways on view would have better placed anyone to make a fairer decision and referee Samuel Barrott did not have that although he was obviously very close to it all.

For most Oxford fans watching the opinion was that the challenge by George Hirst on Elliott Moore was at least as bad as the one that saw Morrell trudging off. An arm or elbow deliberately used? This time it was just a yellow but I got a feeling that Portsmouth had lost their discipline by now. Hence the huge tally of yellows that followed.

As to be expected Portsmouth were in no hurry to have a football match that flowed. It’s often said that a keeper is the slowest at taking goal-kicks ever seen when supporters get frustrated with time wasting tactics but here I honestly think that was true. In the stadium it was like watching a replay set at quarter speed.

They defended heroically with many players camped in their penalty area and blocked everything we were able to produce.

Although mostly one way traffic there was a sign of what was to come with a reminder that we still needed to mark their players even though there was one less of them. Hirst should have done better than shoot straight at a well-positioned Jack Stevens before the break.

As the second half began I was a bit worried about the way we were playing the game. Yes, a man to the good and with Portsmouth in defensive mode we needed to be patient, but it was too slow and pedestrian for me. Herbie Kane is a superb talent but there are times I’m willing him to move the ball on just that bit quicker and play the way he is facing instead of turning to see what the options are behind him.

We also needed an attacker to unsettle them by carrying the ball with pace as another string to our bow. Steve Seddon was getting a lot of the ball out wide but he is not that man and it being 11 v 10 we didn’t need spare defenders.

Six minutes into the second half it wasn’t about finding one goal to take all three points but two goals.

In a tight situation on the left we lost the ball. It wasn’t the best of short passes to him from Brannagan but Seddon couldn’t retain possession.  Portsmouth were away with no messing and we didn’t bother to mark Curtis who finished well.

We had plenty of time to turn things around but they were still defensively stubborn and we weren’t doing a lot different to get the win.

Football is all about doing what is necessary in the circumstances on the day to get the three points. Finding a way to win pretty, ugly or whatever.

I have to give Pompey their due. They appeared to have found the way and we hadn’t. Perhaps Cowley is a decent manager after all.

Nathan Holland replaced newcomer Ciaron Brown not long after we fell behind but nothing altered for quite some time. Perhaps it was my frustration making me focus on the negative.

The clock continued to run on quite rapidly but with eight of the standard 90 minutes left the breakthrough came. After playing the ball about on the right Matty Taylor, who had an exceptionally quiet game bearing in mind the amount of possession we had, switched play to the left. Holland found Brannagan just on his inside. CB had come close a couple of times but that far out (30ish yards) knowing that he can at times be wayward it was “don’t shoot” that was said and thought as the ball was struck magnificently giving Bazunu not a prayer. One of the best long range goals ever scored at the Kassam.

There was little time for celebration. The job needed completing. Brannagan ran straight back for the re-start.

90 minutes came and it was still 2-2. We’d expected a minimum of 7-8 minutes to be added as there had been a four or five minute stoppage due to a head injury. Bazunu’s slow motion movement earned him a late booking and no doubt a few more minutes tacked on too. Then there were six subs (plus two more in added time with a total of eight being permitted under the concussion protocol). So ten was probably about right.

It was 90+6 when we were treated to another wonder goal. Being crap at throw-ins is something I’ve noted over the years but Holland called for the ball even though a marker was on him. He turned inside leaving two Portsmouth players for dead and let fly. Not quite as far out as for our second but an equally good goal. Again Bazunu had no chance, this one going in off the post.

The Portsmouth fans had sung 1-0 and you f****d it up when they equalised. Now it was time for a “2-1 and you F****d it up” even from some in the SSU.

Deep joy.

We might have left it late but did we deserve it? Yes of course we did. We’d found a way.

Look at the stats. 76% possession. 551 passes to Pompey’s 185. Passing accuracy 83% to Pompey’s 54%. Passing accuracy in opponents half 78% to Pompey’s 46%. Crosses 30 from us, three from them. They had just three shots, all on target. We had 28, ten of which were on target.