Another scary performance!

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Maurice Maurice

Maurice Maurice

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This is a team at the top end of the table against a team near the bottom and we were appalling. A Premier League team against that today wouldn't bear thinking about. Pompey should have had 4, woeful finishing from them spared our blushes but if you think for one minute that that team doesn't get trounced every week at the higher level, you need a rethink.

All they did was kick it hard and long, simple stuff but did we ever come to terms with it? Simple answer is no. Burrows, Clark, Anel and Robinson were weak as piss, out of position, easily beat and a good side smashes us today. Midfield before Peck came on were statues. Watching the ball drop to the opposition and standing off allowing them time and space to do as they wished. The strikers were starved of service and all they had to do was stroll around until the inevitable substitutions came.

I thought Rak Sayki did ok when he came on, Brewster with the assist and very unlucky with the shot but Peck made all the difference for me. Gave us some bite, wanted the ball and used it wisely. Great tackle that was wrongly penalised and in 30 minutes was man of the match. Tactics??? We couldn't suss a big boot side out in 95 minutes, that's worrying. We need to get the ball, get some width, play it forward more instead of sideways and backwards and who knows. Bottom line is it's GREAT to win and get 3points playing that badly, please let's not make a habit of it.

UTBFTP 👊👊👊
 

We didn't play well, but Portsmouth deserve a lot of credit today.

In both a positive and negative way, you can see why they drew with Burnley the other week.

Positive: their style of play works and they can play well on their day. Negative: they are wasteful with chances, even Hull didn't have as many chances against us as Portsmouth did, they just took theirs.

Anyone who thought we were going to batter them today should have looked at their results before kickoff, they've not dropped many points in recent games, especially against sides in and around the top.
 
loyalblade95 said:
We didn't play well, but Portsmouth deserve a lot of credit today.

In both a positive and negative way, you can see why they drew with Burnley the other week.

Positive: their style of play works and they can play well on their day. Negative: they are wasteful with chances, even Hull didn't have as many chances against us as Portsmouth did, they just took theirs.

Anyone who thought we were going to batter them today should have looked at their results before kickoff, they've not dropped many points in recent games, especially against sides in and around the top.
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Nah

Should have been a comfortable win and performance, definitely worrying how bad we are and how lucky we’ve been today.
 
Latters said:
I think Anel must be on a bonus if he passes to Cooper more than 50 times in a game, and with that in mind, he must be fucking raking it in.

Sideways and backwards Blades. It’s awful to watch.
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I am done with Anel and Robbo partnership. Holding needs to learn and get up to speed quickly.
 
Bladesman said:
Not sure what Wilder is thinking at the moment. He got the players he wanted, so no excuses from him going forward.
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He has the players he wants just puzzled why he doesnt seem to know what to do with them. I`m sure it will come good in the end one of the top 2 we are destined for its written in the stars.... ;)
 
The problem with Peck is that he could be great today, poor tomorrow. He lacks consistency and you don't know which you're going to get. His poor performances outweigh his good performances so he is not currently the long term answer for the rest of the season. If Arblaster wasn't injured then Peck would've barely featured for us. It's not his fault that he was rushed into action and isn't ready to start every game.
 
Varkanoid said:
He has the players he wants just puzzled why he doesnt seem to know what to do with them. I`m sure it will come good in the end one of the top 2 we are destined for its written in the stars.... ;)
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He hasn't got the players though. 4-2-3-1 is a set up for wingers. We've got two right wingers who both can't command a starting place and no left wingers.

We do have the players for 4-3-3 but we have a stubborn manager who won't change and doesn't know how to use the system he has chosen. Every team we play matches us and uses it and plays better than us using it. Wilder and the lack of wingers is the problem.

We haven't created chances for our strikers all season so what did Wilder do to address this in January? Spent £10mil on another striker. Utterly baffling, naive and arrogant.

Don't get me wrong we made some good signings in January but we don't address the main problem and are left lacking. Signing new players won't fix the season long problem as it's the manager who's the issue with his refusal to change his failing system. Luck is why we're top two. Nothing more.

This is the Hecky promotion season all over again and the following season went well didn't it?
 
Credit to Portsmouth but our subs changed the game, agree about Peck’s impact, Brewsters contribution and felt more secure with Holding in there.

Before that we struggled to get the basics right, from simple passes to marking opposition…still, it’s yet another win on the board.
 
Under the cosh, Wilder excels. However, with all the players he wanted, the options he has, he just can't seem to get them working. Very strong language in the dressing room at full time apparently. Static midfield, ponderously slow build up, easy to deal with. Boro, Leeds , will muller us if continue to perform like this.
Can't play Cannon and Campbell together. They both need service, the continued lack of it will be our downfall. Holding must start, not bothered which of Anel, JLT is dropped.
 
100% agree with Peck, showed more desire, determination, passion and umpteen other words I can use that Choudrey never showed. Let Sousa play in his familiar role that he has played all season and let Peck play with him going forward. Choudrey will be a decent enough back up.
 

A win's a win....but we definitely got out of jail today.

Not sure why Wilder still struggles with playing certain players in their preferred position, Hamer being the obvious candidate.
Hamer has an eye for the runs of other players plus he can do the unexpected, and we're not blessed with many genuinely creative players so our dependency on Gus's guile stands out. Yes, put Gus on the wing and he will produce moments that stand out, but in my view he's best suited to a central position where he's aware of all that goes on around him.
 
Maurice Maurice said:
This is a team at the top end of the table against a team near the bottom and we were appalling. A Premier League team against that today wouldn't bear thinking about. Pompey should have had 4, woeful finishing from them spared our blushes but if you think for one minute that that team doesn't get trounced every week at the higher level, you need a rethink.

All they did was kick it hard and long, simple stuff but did we ever come to terms with it? Simple answer is no. Burrows, Clark, Anel and Robinson were weak as piss, out of position, easily beat and a good side smashes us today. Midfield before Peck came on were statues. Watching the ball drop to the opposition and standing off allowing them time and space to do as they wished. The strikers were starved of service and all they had to do was stroll around until the inevitable substitutions came.

I thought Rak Sayki did ok when he came on, Brewster with the assist and very unlucky with the shot but Peck made all the difference for me. Gave us some bite, wanted the ball and used it wisely. Great tackle that was wrongly penalised and in 30 minutes was man of the match. Tactics??? We couldn't suss a big boot side out in 95 minutes, that's worrying. We need to get the ball, get some width, play it forward more instead of sideways and backwards and who knows. Bottom line is it's GREAT to win and get 3points playing that badly, please let's not make a habit of it.

UTBFTP 👊👊👊
Click to expand...
Play like that and they will get trounced every week at this level, thankfully Pompey couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo
 
I spent the first half of the season being grumpy with people who pointed out the gulf between our results and performances, questioned the formation and tactics, etc. I really thought that Wilder would use the strong defensive base he'd created to get us playing better attacking football eventually.

I was wrong and they were right. We have been terrible to watch for weeks and weeks. We are lucky, we have team spirit that allows us to grind out results, and we have a big wage bill which means flair players who can grab us a win out of nothing. But we do not have any sort of attacking plan or style.

People will say that's irrelevant because we're winning, we're in 2nd, and so on. I respect that position and you can't argue with the results or where we are in the league. But bloody hell I would like to watch a team that gets me out of my seat occasionally. Is that too much to ask? When's the last time we had a team like that to watch?
 
We just seemed to limp over the line today. Substitutions worked a treat. But what was that for 70 mins ?
 
It's all about tactics. Wilder will know how Portsmouth play, but we played like a deer in the headlights when they attacked.
My question us what do they do to prepare for the opposition? Week after week we play the same slow, ponderous way against an opposition. It did work against from Burnley to Portsmouth, Hull to Derby. Games won are alot due to opposition woeful finishing. Whatever the opposition, pass around the back, bypass the non existent midfield to hopefully someone up front. The fans are frustrated, the players are definitely frustrated.

Major rethink required on the remaining games or it's playoff misery
 
That was a get out of jail free card played today.

It was painfully obvious that the biggest miss was O’Hare, we missed him dropping deep in to midfield, and his all action pressing style. I don’t think Cannon worked as a replacement at all
 
Alex Cheeseright said:
It's all about tactics. Wilder will know how Portsmouth play, but we played like a deer in the headlights when they attacked.
My question us what do they do to prepare for the opposition? Week after week we play the same slow, ponderous way against an opposition. It did work against from Burnley to Portsmouth, Hull to Derby. Games won are alot due to opposition woeful finishing. Whatever the opposition, pass around the back, bypass the non existent midfield to hopefully someone up front. The fans are frustrated, the players are definitely frustrated.

Major rethink required on the remaining games or it's playoff misery
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It’s infuriating as the passing round the back usually ends in a rushed ball clipped down the byline( often to oppo goalie) Guess the players are not good enough to play this tactic effectively…though we see top sides fluffing their lines trying to play it out.
 
We were absolutely dreadful today. Yeah everyone says the sign of a good team is to win ugly but we’ve been doing it for 3 months now.

I’m not a negative blade, been looking forward to the game all week thinking this weekend was the first time in ages we’ve had multiple options in every position. I was hoping we’d win convincingly and put on a bit of a performance. A win is a win though.

Listened to Wilder in the car on the way home and have to say I wholeheartedly disagree with him when it said it was nothing to do with the tactics. We’ve largely played a 4231 formation all season. We’ve chanced players all window with that system in mind so why, when we’ve got a fairly fully fit squad did he decide to change it today.

At times we looked like we were in a 424 formation and one of the two often found himself between the two centre backs. Never seen so much space afforded an opposition midfield. As we had two holding midfielders sat in front of a deep defence we then had a 30 yard gap to 4 players stood in a line ahead of them. We had to go pretty direct or it was side to side across the back line. When we went direct it was more often than not coming straight back into the chasm of space in midfield where there was a distinct lack of bodies.

He then swaps us to the 4231 we’ve spent most of the season playing, we then have a 15/20 minute spell where we actually looked the better team for a short while, We get ourselves in front and at that point we looked like we might go on and get a 3rd/4th while the momentum was with us so what does he do… stick us into a back 5 at home against a bottom 6 side. Just seemed really strange to change to a 3rd formation in the game straight after our only good spell in the whole game.

For me it was the worst starting formation and tactics all season. Just didn’t work at all. Hopefully lesson learned for the Boro game as a big improvement is required if we want anything out of that.
 

loyalblade95 said:
We didn't play well, but Portsmouth deserve a lot of credit today.

In both a positive and negative way, you can see why they drew with Burnley the other week.

Positive: their style of play works and they can play well on their day. Negative: they are wasteful with chances, even Hull didn't have as many chances against us as Portsmouth did, they just took theirs.

Anyone who thought we were going to batter them today should have looked at their results before kickoff, they've not dropped many points in recent games, especially against sides in and around the top.
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There’s the rub, we beat them, Burnley didn’t and their away is better than their home. Sunderland deserved to win but didn’t. We didn’t but did.

We take the points and move on. These new players are one game nearer to gelling.
 
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