BFTG Portsmouth Away 25/08/15

[MR. CYNICAL]

Fact, both our keepers are a mistake waiting to happen.
Absolutely no football played by us tonight, back to hoofing it.
Somehow managed to squeak through this one.
Enough said apart from I think Cox has blown his chances now.

[gazzer, loyal royal]

Thought we weren't great tonight, but showed good character to come from behind. We didn't play anywhere near flowing football but that pitch is so tight it's hard to get going.
Al habsi really doesn't fill me with confidence and his celebration when mccleary showed he new there was a massive howler.
Neither side really got any protection from a pretty poor referee. Cox is nowhere near good enough tonplay up top on his own. Gives away silly fouls and his lay off/touch is woeful.
Mccleary gave us something we've been missing so far this season, ability to beat a man and get a cross in. It is such a huge asset to have.

[NR_Royal]

First time to Fratton Park, strong Reading support spending 30 mins loving the team, 30 mins hating the team and 30 mins loving the team even more! Loved the ground - proper stadium. We started really well, dominating with chance after chance, just absolutely no cutting edge - HRK missed a sitter one on one, Cox missed everything, then Al-Habsi and Hector oxf*rd it all up royally. Props to Blackman for scoring when it looked like we were never going to!

Al-Habsi - 4 - Doesn't inspire much confidence, but may need time to gel - mistake was horrendous, communication issues, not sure whether to blame Hector or Ali
Gunter - 7 - solid showing, good crosses today - wasn't tested too much
Hector - 6 - pacy, generally solid - communication with keeper non-existent
Ferdinand - 7 - I still can't believe he's actually a decent player
Obita - 6 - not bad, not tested too much
Norwood - 6 - closed down well
Williams - 7 - Williams and Quinn could be the core midfield we've wanted for a long time - always looks like he gives a shit
Quinn - 7 - managed to be everywhere and was running for days
Blackman - 7 - Probably our biggest threat going forwards - not sure that's a good thing, glad he scored
HRK - 6 - good effort today, still not brill - was nice to hear support for him towards the end but we're a fickle bunch of bastards
Cox - 4 - absolutely useless. Not fast, not strong, not tall, not good at finishing.

Subs
McCleary - not influential but seemed ok*
McShane and Tshibola didn't get much time.

*SCORED THE oxf*rd WINNER 11/10, would play again

[WoodleyRoyal]

McCleary - not influential but seemed ok.

[rightroyalkneesup]

Scoring the winning goal seems fairly influential

[Hendo]

GMac not influential yet scored the winner ....

[NR_Royal]

Good point, I thought Williams scored it!

[tidus_mi2]

Good point, I thought Williams scored it!

[CountryRoyal]

I originally thought NR_royal was trying to be funny and was interested to see how many people bit.... You should have run with that NR.

[Lower West]

The team remains a work in progress. Cox was asked to to do a job tonight to be fair to him he gave it all. As did the whole team. Whatever one thinks of the performance. These players have belief in what Clarke is doing. Something which was plainly amiss during Atkins reign. The introduction of McCleary sparked the team into another gear. Gunter in particular became far more involved in attacking positions. The wind at times must have made it difficult for both teams. A win. Two goals scored. At the end you could see what it meant to the players. Clarke's mentality is to win. To be winners. Treating the Cups with respect shows his ambition.

[paultheroyal]

Decent away game, enjoyed the night.

Al Habsi just seems to have that Rick in him. Even at the end with a throw out I thought it was going to be cut off by one of their players. He did make a great diving punch at the end which was crucial.

Hector looked disinterested tonight, just an observation.
Blackman was excellent. Love to see him getting the Kanu role now, deserves it.
Kanu miss was worse than Saturday. He had time, unchallenged and could of rounded the keeper.
Some of our shooting was woeful, miles over.
Cox very poor. Control, pace, ideas seem to of deserted him.
Gunter and Ferdinand excellent.
Williams good driving forward.
Quinn not wowed me yet in the games played.
Mcleary excellent in his cameo and shows totally what we were missing.

Apart from first ten mins we were very poor first half. Different team second half with no end product. Apart from a massive chance for them at start of second half they rarely trouble Habsi (thank god).

Away fans in decent voice. Great to see a large crowd for a tie like that.

Good night out.

[Royality creeps In]

Potential cup shock avoided, no thanks to Al-Habsi
Our last two goals conceded have been down to keeper(s) errors. By the end of the evening It looked like the defence were scared to pass back to him
What hope is there if the team have no confidence in their own keeper.
Can we get Feds back on loan or something.

Pompey where a typical lower league team, playing with lots of energy but little skill and looked like HRK was fouled in the build up to their goal
Apart from our keepers error they offered little, having said that we weren't brilliant. Somehow we huffed and puffed to a result.
I thought that Blackman was one of our better players as where Williams and Quinn. Gunter and Ferdinand did pretty well, the rest bar Norwood where pretty lame.
Most positive thing for me was seeing Mcleary back.

Always nice to get one over Pompey and their Pikey fans. Having been there on numerous occasions, this was a rare win over a team that usually get a result against us.
Happy Days

[winchester_royal]

Ironically enough that's probably the worst performance of the season so far, but the only one that's brought a win in normal time.

Tbf to Portsmouth they pressed us very well, and the wind made things tricky, but we lacked any kind of tempo in our passing and as such it made for a quite turgid performance in some parts.

Cox was woeful, and made it painfully obvious how much extra Sa brings to the team when he plays.

Blackman was good, and has been consistently so this season. Deserves to held in a higher regard imo. Looks a real threat.

McCleary was surprisingly sharp for someone who's been out injured for a few weeks, and it didn't look beyond the realms of possibility that he could start at the weekend.

Aside from that nobody really stood out as being overly good/bad. We were made to really work for this one by a good Pompey team and it was nice to see us put in the hard yards to graft out the win, and it was clear to see at the end how much it meant to them all.

[Warfield North Stand]

1st half awful
Start of 2nd half awful
Their goal awful
Got going after that and I thought we showed a lot of grit and determination tbh. Yiou could see with the celebrations that they are all up for it.
Quinn and Williams put a real shift in. Quinn was everywhere towards the end.
Traffic awful
Parking awful
Big LOL at the bunch towards our left. I have never seen such an angry bunch of 12 year olds in my life!! Good to see that the Pompey hooligan scene is good for years to come
Good night out in the end.

[paultheroyal]

Thought traffic and parking was decent last night. Managed to park down a high street before train station, free after 6pm. Panicked when heard M3 closed but worked out could get off at Winchester and up A30.

That kids in hoody / tracksuit was hilarious!

[Winchester Royal]

The team made far more work of that than they should have in the first half, letting Pompey have the space at the back to loft it over and run on. It should have been a lot easier to contain what was a limited threat from Pompey. In the second half, with their defence closed down and the players taking a little more time on the ball, we looked a lot more threatening.

I'm not convinced by Al Habsi, every time the ball goes near him I'm concerned, although he did keep his lines clear in the last few minutes when they had everybody forward.

It was great to finally see a win at Fratton Park, it was a good turnout and a decent away day.

Ended up parking a couple of miles north of the ground and walking in, as it was standstill traffic by the time we got onto the island.

[Stranded]

Having just seen the highlights - I would probably have to put the bulk of the blame on Hector for their goal. As the defender, in that situation, you just get rid. Even if Al Habsi called, the time it took for the ball to get to him with the pressure from the player should have seen Hector deal with it.

[MmmMonsterMunch]

Not really sure what to think coming away from that!

Quite frankly we were pretty poor after a relatively bright 10-15 min start. Just no cutting edge whatsoever & the players didn't seem that up for it. If you had to ask who was the League 2 side, you'd have said us. Pompey pressed & passed pretty well & were good for their 1-0 lead.

Once they'd scored, I fancied them to get a 2nd & kill it as we looked completely toothless. Then Blackman scores out of nowhere & all of a sudden we're back in it.

GMac coming on definitely changed the game. Worrying that we are SO reliant on him. Cox was poor as per usual - loan him out / sell him. Even in the warm up he looked shot of confidence & fed up.

Kudos to the Pompey fans - talk about back your team throughout. Put us to shame really but not hard to do that I guess.... Great little ground there although lack of beer available for away fans is a big negative.

Oh and WHY do we insist on singing Blue Army away from home when we are wearing lilac? Especially when Pompey are wearing blue & singing it themselves. Divs.

[MmmMonsterMunch]

The team remains a work in progress. Cox was asked to to do a job tonight to be fair to him he gave it all. As did the whole team. Whatever one thinks of the performance. These players have belief in what Clarke is doing. Something which was plainly amiss during Atkins reign. The introduction of McCleary sparked the team into another gear. Gunter in particular became far more involved in attacking positions. The wind at times must have made it difficult for both teams. A win. Two goals scored. At the end you could see what it meant to the players. Clarke's mentality is to win. To be winners. Treating the Cups with respect shows his ambition.

Hmm.....I'm a Clarke fan & don't want him sacked but I'm not entirely sure I agree these players do all have belief in what he is doing. They looked like they were going through the motions and not remotely up for it last night in my humble opinion and they certainly didn't they look like they were enjoying it.

[LWJ]

Would we take a pretty loss, or a ugly win?