Adam McGurk hit a contender for goal of the season in scoring Pompey’s equaliser, like a latter day Matt Taylor he scored from fully 35 yards to give the massed Pompey hoards something to cheer about on a below par day.
Pompey will see Oxford as promotion rivals this season, but to be fair it was Oxford who looked more likely in a first half where Pimpey really struggled to gain a foothold, Nigel Atangana has been a standout player so far this season, but he had a stinker for 45 painful minutes, what could go wrong, went wrong, culminating in a free kick being passed straight to an opponent from 10 yards.
He was not the only one however as Pompey faded after a bright first ten minutes, Liam Sercombe was a rumoured target early summer, he chose Oxford early on though and like last season when he was at Exeter, blasted Oxford into the lead, Pompey as they have on a few occasions, failed to fully clear a corner, Sercombe struck it through a sea of players and it was all looking grim. Pompey were in fact indebted to Paul Jones in goal only because of an injury to Murphy, in not going into half time two or three behind.
At half time Paul Cook replaced Atangana with Adam Barton, it was a first league outing for Barton and he showed some great vision mixed with what is hopefully just a lack of match practice. Pompey were still making hard work of it until the ball came to McGurk picked the ball up some distance from goal, he took one stride and let fly, the ball nestling lovely in the back of the net.
Pompey were level out of nothing really, it did however galvanise them and at last they at least looked on par with their opponents, but Pompey decided to make the last ten tough for themselves, Doyle who was on a yellow was left having to lunge in after Bennett had missed his tackle, the ref was having none of his pleas and off he went.
Pompey had been decidedly below par for most of the game, but had again stolen a point, and also remained undefeated, not a bad habit to fall into.
Share this article
