Not a bad way for the Pompey new boys to start.
Without being disrespectful to Bognor, this was only a pre-season friendly, but Brett Pitman marked his first appearance for the Blues with a brace in a 2-0 victory on Saturday.
Pitman, signed from Ipswich on Friday, scored twice and also captained the side.
At the other end, goalkeeper Luke McGee, snapped up from Spurs earlier in the week, marked his first outing for Pompey with a clean sheet.
It didn’t take Pitman long to make his mark as a he made the most of a short back pass to beat Bognor keeper Dan Lincoln on five minutes to put Pompey ahead. The Blues had to wait until four minutes from time for the second but it was the captain again to wrap up a win at Nyewood Lane.
Bognor: Lincoln; Whyte (Davies 46), Field (Block 71), El-Abd (c) (Heath 46), Bird; Tuck, Lee (Beck 46); Parsons (Muitt 46), Suraci (Scutt 63), Pearce (Dolcetti 82); Wild (Rowlatt 46)
Pompey: McGee; Evans, Burgess, Davies, Holmes-Dennis; May, Rose; Baker, Pitman (c), Bennett; Chaplin
Subs not used: Bass, Talbot, Whatmough, Close, Lalkovic, Naismith, Main
Referee: Gary Parsons
Attendance: 1,800
Kenny Jackett admitted it had been a ‘dead game’ that could have gone either way due to the fact we couldn’t kill it off.
He told the News: ‘It was quite a dead game in many ways today and we didn’t put the game out of sight until the second goal. Even though we were 1-0 up, one chance, one mistake, could have evened it.’
Adding: ‘I felt we had a lot of the ball without any real cutting edge and decided, as the second half went on, to get the ball wide and get it into the box. The grass was quite long and see if we could put the game to bed there and then perhaps it would be a situation where we keep the ball.’
He thought it right to credit Bognor though and would be interested to see how the Rocks get on this season.
‘But we didn’t put it away until the second goal so the game was open. Credit to Bognor, though, I thought they played very well. They played it out from the back, had a good way and a good style about them. It will be interesting to see how their season goes after today’s performance.’
PLAY UP POMPEY
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