This was supposed to be a brave new dawn, new manager, new start.
Thing is someone forgot to tell the Pompey players, once more on the road Pompey fans turned up in force to support their heroes, once more their heroes let them down, and let them down badly.
Michael Appleton reckons he learnt a lot from this latest rollover defeat, he probably witnessed first hand what we, the fans, have witnessed for a while, complacency and like of desire amongst a few of our players, winning is a habit, so is turning up, collecting your wages and going through the motions.
Sorry to be so flat after all the new hope we built up with a couple of home wins and a new manager, but my patience has waned heavily with this unit, we have one of the smallest, yet most experienced squads in the division, wages are probably up there with some of the best in the division as well, yet we still make the same mistakes week in, week out, if you play Pompey at home you are almost guaranteed a head start, Watford scored in the first 2 minutes as Derby had before them, a goal was scored from an unmarked player at the back post, as countless have been this season.
Listening to the game, you almost know what will come next, if a corner is coming over you expect a chance for the opposing side, if we send in a centre and Kitson is on the end of it, you expect it to go wide.
The game hardly bares speaking about for a Pompey fan, Kightly scored in 2 minutes, cutting inside a flat footed Halford and hitting a pea-roller about 25 yards that bobbled and skipped inside the post.
The second goal came on the stroke of half-time, Pompey had offered little until now and would probably accepted a one goal deficit, a late corner was swung in and Sordell had time to swivel and volley via Halford into the net, 2 nil, all over.
The second half was more of the same, Sordell missed another good chance and Pompey had to wait until the last 5 minutes to threaten at all, Kitson missed his usual front post header and Huseklepp at last forced Loach into meaningful action with a free-kick that was parried away.
Pompey marched off at the whistle with the travelling 1,700+ away fans still singing, 1,700 fans who had spent their money and been let down once more, it’s nearly Xmas now, we have an abysmal away record, average home record and have the delight of watching the highlights on the Championship of our biggest rivals up the road winning for fun every week, that test is in 4 short weeks away, thankfully at Fratton, if this bunch of players think they can go through the motions that day, I would like them all to be ready to look for new clubs on th Monday, Pompey fans are forgiving, very forgiving, patience is short now though, hopefully Appleton can start to get some verve into his charges by next saturday, he deserves time, he will get it, the players though have had plenty of that, time is up for them, start performing boys, or ship out.
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