It must have ranked among the most boring, uninspiring, and basically uneventful games that I have seen in a while yet the main thing was that Pompey took the points thanks to a late winner from ‘super sup’ Kanu.
Steve Cotterill has made little, or no, comment since the defeat with coaches Ian Woan and Guy Whittingham handling the press duties from the looks of it.
Woan ‘hailed’ the impact of Kanu, and he would be right – as he did change the game, again: ‘we made a good substitution that won us the game. We weren’t getting hold of the ball, but King came on and made that happen.
‘Kanu’s a magician. Day in, day out on the training pitch the sort of things he does with a ball are phenomenal.
‘His legs can’t always carry him for 90 minutes now, but it’s fantastic to be able to bring him off the bench. Players can’t get the ball off him and get to a stage where they don’t want to challenge him because he embarrasses you.
‘He came on, created chances and scored one. He was perfect for the situation we found ourselves in.’
I could be wrong but ‘perhaps’ the reaction given by the fans when Joel Ward was taken off ‘could’ be the reason for such a quiet Cotterill?
It goes without saying that Kanu coming on was the right tactical change although I can understand the crowds reaction to Ward going off as I do believe that he was not the right one that should have been hauled off. But hey ho, what can you do eh.
For a second week running we not only won, but we kept another clean sheet – largely down to the fact that we DID keep a settled back four: ‘it’s all about clean sheets, and that was our second one on the bounce. The fact we didn’t concede meant we stayed in the game and then were able to win.
‘We’ve struggled to keep clean sheets this season, but the defence has been the same for the last two games, and that’s made a big difference. We defended well.’
David Cotterill came straight in to make his debut and I thought the guy did ok – so did Woan.
Worryingly though Liam Lawrence was forced off with an injury, the extend of which will be known when he undergoes a scan on Monday: ‘I thought David Cotterill did well thrown in at the deep end. There were four or five good crosses into the box that our strikers have been crying out for. He worked hard and it was a bright start for him, considering he hasn’t played for a while.
‘We took Liam off as a precaution, with all the games we have coming up. He came off as soon as he said he was feeling pain.
‘He’ll have a scan on Monday, when we’ll know the full extent of the injury. It will be a big loss if it’s anything worse than what it was two weeks ago when it first niggled him.’
I do not think that Lawro has looked quite right for a few weeks, this has impacted on his performances. We knew that he has been carrying a knock, or knocks, but perhaps they were worse than he, or we, though?
Lets just hope that things are not too bad as he is still an inspirational character even when not quite on his game.
As said it was a poor game, with little quality to get excited about but we MUST get the results we need to ensure that we stay in this league – and it is ‘starting’ to look good that we will…
Palace is another huge game on Tuesday, all 3pts from this and we are looking good for another year of nopower football, and that will do me.
PLAY UP POMPEY!
