Is the win over Palace on Tuesday night a mere stay of execution or another step towards a dramatic ‘greatest of greatest ever great escapes?’
Well, my heart says the latter but me head says the former…
Appy, like all of us, knows that it is ‘Bristol City’s to throw away’ now – a win for them, as you would expect, against Barnsley at the weekend and we are down regardless of our result against Derby – a game we MUST win to have any chance.
‘Keep fighting’ is exactly what he says we will do though: ‘all the pressure is on Bristol City. There’s no pressure on us. It’s for them to throw away. We can’t control their results.
‘We’ll give it everything we’ve got and try to win on Saturday, because we’ve got pride and dignity. If the worst-case scenario does happen, hopefully we can do down having a little bit about us.
‘But if we get a victory, who knows? From a personal point of view I would love it to go to the last day of the season, because I think that would be a massive achievement for everyone associated with the club.
‘And if it gets to the last day, anything can happen – you see dramas up and down the country on the final day every year but let’s face it, it’s Bristol City’s to lose. We all know that, and I fully expect them to do a job on Barnsley on Saturday. But If they don’t we’ll be knocking on the door just in case.’
The game itself?
Well, despite some quality lacking at times, I actually enjoyed it all-in-all as it was a decent end-to-end game – especially in the 2nd half.
I have to say that in the 2nd half, without a doubt after we had scored the second goal and even more so after Palace pulled one back, we started dropping too deep and invited extra pressure on ourselves but ‘stood up’ to this.
So, I, like Appy – and I dare so most others – enjoyed it: ‘I thought it was a good game of football. We were too open at times, but the way we set up with three up top made us that way.
‘Palace were very dangerous with their young players, and they played with freedom, having nothing to play for.
‘But our lads stood strong, hung in there and played some good stuff at times. And when we were a little under the cosh in the second half, I thought we counter-attacked well.’
The 2-1 win saw us claim back-to-back victories for the first time since December, for us to have any chance of overtaking Bristol City we have to achieve back-to-back victories again and god knows when the last time was we managed four wins on the spin!
It seems a lifetime ago, although the reality is that this was in the first half of last season when we had that purple patch.
In all reality we will go down but at least we, if we do, can go down with a bit of fight shown and can have some pride – bring on The Rams, if nothing else lets end the Fratton season on a high eh…
PLAY UP POMPEY!
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