Firstly, I have a couple of confessions to make, I have to take a share of the blame for our defeat last night, as I had to tempted fate before the game…
I do not get to many games these days so I uttered the most ridiculous words on the way to the Fortress to my cousin Paul and Steve, the boyfriend of one of my other cousins Louise, ‘I have not seen us lose a game for X amount of years!’
Right away I knew I had committed a cardinal sin.
Not content at that I thought to myself – but did not share until after the game – that I do not think that I have ever seen us win a midweek game when I have gone, granted there might not have been too many, but home and away I cannot remember a midweek win.
Now, confessions out of the way, as I could not bring myself to doing it last night I could not do a report on the shambles when we crashed out of the league cup, today I have to leave Pompey so I will be on the train most the day – but then again to be honest I do not think the match – certainly from a Pompey point of view – deserves a report anyway, as it was a real mess and basically carried on where Saturday left off…
Very, very few players came out of the defeat to Blackburn with much credit, who in all fairness did not have to play particularly well to beat us, not saying they did not play well as they deserved to win and they do have a very good side, a well-organised side full of players that look dangerous.
In Benni McCarthy – who deserved the applause that he got for apologising when the ball smashed into someone in the crowd – and Roque Santa Cruz they have two fantastic strikers, the two wide players Morten Gamst Pedersen and David Bentley offer top service and quality and at the back they look very tight, Chris Samba was a different class, mopping up everything – so it is little wonder teams are meant to be looking at him.
The 3 of us agreed after the game that Blackburn are the team to challenge and us to look to reach, as if they do not finish at least 5th we would be surprised, the thought even being that if anyone could break into the top 4 it could quite possibly be them.
The stand out player for us was Niko Kranjcar, he was fantastic and looked a danger every time he had the ball, but did not get it enough and when he did others did not show enough to help him.
Anyway, now that the confessions, the moaning and the praise for the opponent are out of the way we really have missed a chance this season.
Yep, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal might still be in the cup but had we won last night we would have only been 2 wins away from the final – I would love to see Pompey win a major trophy, which as much as it may now be ‘belittled’ the league cup is still a major domestic trophy.
As much as I want us to finish high in the league I do not see it as a chance for us now ‘to concentrate on the league’ as I heard so many people saying after the game. I would rather have won the league cup than finished somewhere between 7th and 12th, which although we could finish higher – if we get the right players in January – we certainly need to improve.
Yep we have missed a chance here fellas, but it is our own fault.
PLAY UP POMPEY!
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