saintant

He's possibly suffering from having team mates who are not the cleverest footballers. Must be frustrating for him I should imagine. His football brain is the sharpest we've got and the fact that the rest are not on his wavelength is hardly his fault.

He also set up AA who should have scored from his perfect through ball.

Why leave out Wellington who was as good as those back four players you mention.

Our passing and movement is just not good enough. We don't come short into the space to receive the ball, we don't get between the lines and our passing is so sloppy even when under little pressure. Clearly the drills on the training ground are not making things better. It really frustrates that we are so static and play with such a lack of intelligence. We need a bloody good coach brought in to explain how simple this game can be because we make everything look so difficult.

So you believe Mad Nate then.

He was poor and constantly gave the ball away. Two fancy flicks did pay off for him but more by luck than judgement.

Bree was good and looked our fittest player which tells its own story. Our passing is very careless and stops us putting much sustained pressure on opponents because we give it away so cheaply time after time. The back four was generally decent today. Midfield was weak and we need more physicality there and up front. AA should score at least one of his chances - probably the first which he should have lifted. Always feared Pompey would fluke an equaliser and no surprise that it came from a corner dropped into our six yard box. Loved Leo's celebration which was the best moment of a scrappy match. We meed to do some business in the final week of the window because we are still a very weak (physically) side. Probably too late to do much about the lack of fitness but this simply must be addressed in the next pre-season.

He's had zero service because Eckert has gone too negative.

What game are you watching 🙂 He's been hopeless.

You must be joking 🙂

We clearly lost the midfield battle in that half and they won most duels and picked up the majority of second balls. Matsuki a complete waste of space - nearly every pass went to a blue shirt. Scienza has had zero service and we are giving them too much respect with this line up. AA should have had two goals from our only two bits of decent football proving that is we play we can open them up. Get Stewart and Fellows on asap. Keeper has done well and come out aggressively for some crosses.

Unfortunately you can only have more control if your passing is accurate - ours is generally careless and shite.

Spot on.

This is my concern. Wouldn't surprise me to see Bree as one of 3 centre backs with Matsuki replacing Fellows as the right sided wing back. Aside from that Stewart should have started unless he is injured in which case why is he on the bench? Eckert needs to get this right against an injury ravaged Pompey or he will have many testing questions to answer. No real presence upfront with lightweight AA is a real worry.

What you mean the £62 million profit we made on player trading 🙂