Poor Show 2

[Pompey Penguin]

I am a great supporter of Cook, and like the way he has Pompey playing football. Despite the occasional frustrations, I would rather watch a Cook side than a game of hoofball by a team of giants.

However, even I get annoyed when Pompey players have 10-15 yards of space ahead of them, and still turn backwards and wait for support, when they should be moving forward and commiting a defender to open up some space for others. As a result, we are very poor at attacking teams on the break, which is an important part of modern football; turnover ball equals opportunity and chances.

That is not to justify booing the team when they are 2-0 up and running the opposition into the ground. Chaplin, Roberts and Hunt all missed excellent chances before Baker's double, and that is nothing to do with a system or style; a couple of those go in and the mood would have been very different.

[pompeygunner]

Ref. the booing, personally wouldn't worry about it. I dont do it but I think I could see why it happened yesterday, we made heavy weather of beating 9 men. Its not about just lumping it forwards either as some seem to think, its more to do with playing through the middle instead of the side to side passing which is sometimes easy to counter by putting banks of players in ft of it. We just needed to do something different. No big deal.
In fact our best period came when they had 11 on the pitch for the 1st 10mins of the second half when we had them on toast I thought. Some really good attacking football creating chance after chance. If any had been taken we'd have romped home anyway.
I would like to see Smith & Chaplin up top if circumstances like yesterday happen again, I was hoping Smudger would come on earlier because IMO the conditions were taylor made for him & that attempted back heel was well audacious.
I'm happy we won, 3 points & 2 points gained on Carlisle.
Never a dull moment @ Pompey. PUP PPU.
My MoM was Rose, thought he was excellent. Not sure how Burgess got it, he made @ least 3 ballsups 1st half.

[Selsey Bill]

My MoM was Rose, thought he was excellent. Not sure how Burgess got it, he made @ least 3 ballsups 1st half.

Completely agree, our best player by a country mile, second best was Kyle Bennett. We had two centre backs yesterday - one of them was Burgess, the other was Matt Clarke - and Matt was the better

[<dj.>]

Yes, Clarke was better defensively. I think the main match sponsors' eye was caught by a couple of very impressive long diagonal passes that Burgess put in.

Apparently, the main match sponsors get to meet the MoM after the match and there have been occasions when the MoM has been chosen by a young lady in that party for "non-footballing reasons". Hence I'm more interested in the MOM nominations on here than at the match. I would have gone for Rose or Bennett.

[Portchester PFC]

I sit in the Fratton End and around me there didn't seem to be too much booing, seemed to be more from the North Stand, around me it was more nervous tension/frustration as despite 9 men they looked like they still had a goal in them and I think if they had equalised with 9 men then there would have been some issues with the crowd.

What frustrated me was that despite the numerical advantage we seemed to sit too deep as a team at times, i would liked to have seem at least one or two left up when they came in our half.

I don't mind the passing, the possession did what it was intended to do Saturday, they eventually capitulated, albeit it we did make it much harder work than it needed to be.

I also can't believe how Burgess got MOTM or how him and Forde scored so highly in the Snooze, in the first half there were at least three occasions when between the two of them they nearly made a complete mess of it whilst under pressure, they could have easily cost us a goal as they didn't seem to be communicating with each other at all.

[pompeygunner]

I sit in the Fratton End and around me there didn't seem to be too much booing, seemed to be more from the North Stand, around me it was more nervous tension/frustration as despite 9 men they looked like they still had a goal in them and I think if they had equalised with 9 men then there would have been some issues with the crowd.

What frustrated me was that despite the numerical advantage we seemed to sit too deep as a team at times, i would liked to have seem at least one or two left up when they came in our half.

I don't mind the passing, the possession did what it was intended to do Saturday, they eventually capitulated, albeit it we did make it much harder work than it needed to be.

I also can't believe how Burgess got MOTM or how him and Forde scored so highly in the Snooze, in the first half there were at least three occasions when between the two of them they nearly made a complete mess of it whilst under pressure, they could have easily cost us a goal as they didn't seem to be communicating with each other at all.

Pretty much spot on & exactly how I saw it tbh.

[Pompey Penguin]

On another issue, Chaplin managed in pick up another pointless booking and eventually he is going to get banned. Three I have seen this season are diving (maybe unlucky there), delaying a free kick deep in the opponent's half (v. Cambridge) and not retreating at a free kick in the opponent's half (v. Mansfield). This is not "taking one for the team" or a moment of misjudgement / mistiming, it's plain idiocy and he needs to learn.

[<dj.>]

The Chaplin booking puzzled me because, from my position in the North Stand, I had a good view of it. Mansfield players claimed Chaplin had not retreated 10yds and their goalie refused to take the free kick. He looked 10yds to me, more or less, and the ref had not told him where to stand. From the ref's angle, he couldn't have known if Chaplin was 10yds back. The linesman would have had a good view - maybe he told the ref it was less than 10yds. When the free kick was taken, Chaplin was in the same place.

I agree he is picking up more bookings than he needs to. He was booked for time wasting when he was being subbed too, but that may have been last season.

[Selsey Bill]

The Chaplin booking puzzled me because, from my position in the North Stand, I had a good view of it. Mansfield players claimed Chaplin had not retreated 10yds and their goalie refused to take the free kick. He looked 10yds to me, more or less, and the ref had not told him where to stand. From the ref's angle, he couldn't have known if Chaplin was 10yds back. The linesman would have had a good view - maybe he told the ref it was less than 10yds. When the free kick was taken, Chaplin was in the same place.

I agree he is picking up more bookings than he needs to. He was booked for time wasting when he was being subbed too, but that may have been last season.

In all the other madness that was going on I'd forgotten about this booking. I sit on the half way line of NSL and I also got a great view of it. To me he looked just short of 10 yards from the ball, but as you say the referee would not of known that. What was crazy was that I reckon Chaplin was even closer to the ball after his booking, and in essence he could have been booked for a second time and sent off. I also agree that he is doing this far too often and someone(Doyle?) needs to speak with him.On that note, Doyle is the past master at not getting booked (I know) but he certainly gets away with murder on a regular basis!