As paultsmouth said in his match report Birmingham sent us ‘crashing back down with a bump’ – then again can anyone really say that they were surprised to see us lose last night? Honestly?
Avram Grant, talking to The Pompey Site, said he was ‘disappointed’ but also feels it could have been because we put so much into the cup game that there was an element of ‘tiredness’ about the team: ‘it was very disappointing, especially after our win on Saturday but maybe it was because of the effort we put into the FA Cup.
‘We didn’t play with the same energy that we did in the cup. We started well but after they scored with their first attack, we didn’t respond well. We were slow and not at the tempo we should have been at.
‘Maybe it was hard for the players to play two games in three days.’
Grant did make a couple of changes at half time but felt he did not have enough players available to have changed things round as much as he ‘might’ have liked with ‘key players tired after Saturday’.
The problem we have is that with the small squad that we have, and lets be honest the quality – and experience from some if nothing else – that is lacking from it, it is hard to make wholesale changes at Birmingham did, that said ‘perhaps’ there were a couple more sitting on the bench that maybe could have started? But hey ho…
Clearly though the cup win was the more important one – something that Grant admitted: ‘the situation isn’t easy but in the circumstances, Saturday was a more important game.’
He also had plenty to say in his post match interview in front of the sky sports cameras, with his main point being that he wants the points deduction – and what is happening with this – sorted out sooner rather than later: ‘the players want to win on the pitch. But of course when you always hear about the nine points, you know you cannot do anything.
‘Although the Premier League has yet to take the points away, of course it has an effect. When you have a target it is more easy. This situation is not easy.
‘We need to know for sure what is happening. Of course this affects the players, who are doing their best to win each game.’
The rest of this interview, and more can be seen, Grant laments uncertainty – here.
All in all, like I say, it was disappointing really but not unexpected at all really was it?
Again, as said, despite the small nature of our squad and the quality and experience that is lacking from it perhaps another change or so could have been made to the side that started the game to have freshened things up a bit.
What I would say though was some of the calls coming into The Quay as we travelled home were, although I guess as always, totally out of this world!
Lets face it we HAVE – to all intend and purpose – been relegated for most of the season, so why now, off the back of a place being booked in the FA cup semi final, are people calling up so surprised and going on about how our season is all over blah, blah, blah…
PLAY UP POMPEY!
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