Feeling the pain
CUP exits are always painful. When last minute goals are involved it's even more so. But I do feel a dose of realism is called for
Last night City showed a lot of the poor aspects of thier play in whats turning into another dissapointing season. After taking an early lead with a well taken goal we appeared to get no confidence boost at all.
Few worthwhile chances besides the goal were created in the first half. Facing a team who were clearly well short of confidence we let them back in the game.
In the first half Westwood was the busiest keeper, but at least we had our nose in front. In the second half Portsmouth largely dominated
It's true that the loss of Clingan at half time was a big blow. Because of delays in stengthening the squad we were left exposed by injuries. However I was looking for more from the eleven players who took the field in Sky Blue.
I was hoping we could hang on in the ninety minutes. But we were under increasing pressure,and the few attacks we managed showed little conviction.
Another feature of our season however has been woeful defending. The last minute goal we conceded was frankly embarrasing.For all that in the thirty minutes of extra time we had the opportunity to take the game to the opposition
This didn't happen,and it almost seemed we were holding out for penalties. Whilst losing Best at this point was far from ideal I was astonished by Chris Coleman's response to it.
Shaun Jeffers will doubtless be demoralised that the manager didnt call on him in this situation.
Who knows how penalties would have turned out. Allowing the Portsmouth defender a free header in the final seconds seemed to sum up our slapdash performance
I note in todays telegraph Coleman saying "it's not as if they outplayed us or anything like that"
Looking at the statistics that show Portsmouth had 16 shots to our 6 and 9 corners to our 5 I'd say that suggests they did
I was looking for more from the team. Again Coleman's been shown to be a poor motivator. It remains to be seen what the rest of the season brings.
Hopefully with investment in the squad in the window we will be able to compete towards the top half of the table. But unless Chris Coleman can produce a team that have the self belief to compete with the best it could be a tough end to the season
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Agreed. I'm afraid just "working hard" isn't good enough anymore. With the investment in the club, the stadium nad the other facilities we should expect more.
Let's not pretend Portsmouth are your typical Premiership team. They've bottom of the leadue, short of confidence and have massive off the field issues. They were the worst Prem team i've seen in years.
I hold out with Carl Baker-related hope.
We did throw it away,we should be playing Sunderland in the next round,but once again we took our eye of the ball.I agree that Pompey were poor for most of the game,but that's what makes it worse,they should have been killed off,and that's really frustrating.
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