Pompey Match Zone

Video – Pompey 1-1 Shrewsbury

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Ok, it wasn’t a great Pompey performance, but rescuing a late point against Shrewsbury retained our unbeaten start.

These are the views of eastneydave, a stalwart of Fratton Park, on the game, which has seen him honest enough to admit a point was the most the Blues deserved.

Pompey 1 Shrewsbury Town 1

Pompey almost surrendered their unbeaten record yesterday afternoon when a determined Shrewsbury frustrated the hosts took the lead and were eventually deprived by a late Brett Pitman penalty.

Kenny named the expected side with Oli Hawkins fit to continue up top and Andre Green making his debut in place of Ronan Curtis away on international duty.

Pompey came out of the traps quickly when on two minutes Jamal Lowe forced a sprawling save from Joel Coleman. They kept playing all the football for the first quarter an hour with Green looking lively but no further openings created.

The Shrews then took control of the game by pressing Pompey and denying them any time or space to play in. The visitors then played all the football knocking the ball around but despite all their efforts, they could not test ex Salop keeper Craig MacGillivray.

At the interval, Jackett made changes with Ben Close on for Ben Thompson and David Wheeler for Green. Such is the strength of Kenny’s squad he can afford to make these changes to more than tweak his side and these changes improved Pompey’s display and chances were created but most from long range.

Town’s back four stood firm and they thought they should have had a penalty when Alex Gilliead went on a mazy run and fell when challenged by Lee Brown but referee Breakspear waved their appeals aside.

Pompey made their final change when Pitman replaced the tiring Hawkins but it was Pompey who made a horrific mistake to gift the visitors the lead with substitute Greg Docherty’s first touch. A cross came into the box and Nathan Thompson headed the ball into the air and Christian Burgess got lost under the ball and it dropped for Docherty to simply roll home.

Pompey then, at last, began to ramp up the pressure and should have been awarded a penalty when Pitman hauled down but again the officials saw nothing wrong. But a few minutes later Nathan Thompson was tripped by Gilliead and Pitman so reliable from the spot smashed it into the corner.

Thus Pompey escaped with a point which was the most they deserved even though Shrewsbury only had one shot on target all game. Stats, of course, are misleading I had a look at Peterborough’s 3-2 win at Southend yesterday and they only had three shots on target while their hosts had TEN.

Next week sees the top two clash at London Road. It is still early in the season but a result there for Pompey would be very welcome.

The above text was initially posted in his weekly blog, Sunday Chimes, on to issue 162 now.

Well then, had it not been for Brett Pitman that unbeaten League One run would have ended, which wouldn’t have pleased any of us, certainly not myself.

This video shows the key highlights, obviously the goals, from Saturday.

Yes, pre-match I’d said we couldn’t expect a Pompey win, as much as we might have felt confident it would happen. Personally I did fancy us to continue the run with all three points; however, I was most keen we kept the undefeated streak going, which we did.

PLAY UP POMPEY

Follow @VitalPortsmouth.

2018-19 Prediction League – September
Peterborough (a) – Saturday 15th September 2018 – click here.
Wycombe (h) – Saturday 22nd September 2018 – click here.
Rochdale (a) – Saturday 29th September 2018 – click here.

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