This is the dawning of a new era.
Well more a case of ‘here comes the new boss, same as the old boss’ in more ways than one, Paul Hart is now confirmed as manager, and Pompey reverted to type by throwing away a two goal cushion, a frailty that served us so well under Tony Adams.
To be fair, Pompey have been back in training a matter of days, we fielded a mixture of first teamers, young hopefuls and trialists hoping to catch the eye.
Pompey fielded two different sides, one for each half, the first half saw a line up of Begovic, Wilson, Kaboul, Distin, Bhasera (trialist), Basinas, Mullins, Hughes, Kranky, Ritchie, Nugent.
Most encouraging in the lie up was the sight of Sylvain Distin after the press had indicated he was on the verge of joining SPurs, Liverpool or Villa.
Pompey certainly showed many signs of rustiness (unease?) and were behind Havant with their match fitness, it was only in the second half when a new line up of Ashdown, Ward, Primus, Audel (trialist), Hurst, Mbamai, Diop, Bopp(trialist), Cowan-Hall, Subotic, Pancrate(trialist) took to the field, Bopp who Hart knew from his time at Forest was certainly catching the eye, not always for the right reasons, he scored two goals which obviously gets a big tick on the managers score board, but then played an awful ball to let the Hawks back in. Cowan-Hall sounded lively with plenty of pace, and Subotic sounded big, strong and er, cumbersome, not unlike Vincent Pericard when he was here.
The Hawks eventually played their way to an equaliser, and Paul Hart may have got a better idea of the task ahead, the heart has been ripped out of his team, especially with the imminent departure of Crouch, but if the trialists we had on display as tonight are as good as we can attract, he should get on his best suit and knock the new Chairmans door sharpish!
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