Kenny Jackett laments 'soft' goals after more Portsmouth away-day woes with MK Dons defeat

The Blues were yesterday humbled at relegation-threatened MK Dons with a 3-1 defeat.

Infuriatingly for the Pompey faithful, the reverse occurred on the back of successive home victories over League One’s top two – Ipswich and Wycombe.

Yet the side participated in their own downfall, allowing the Dons to score against the run of play in the 35th minute after Sean Raggett’s mistake allowed Rhys Healey to net.

The visitors would never recover, with Conor McGrandles and Alex Gilbey also subsequently benefiting from defensive fragility.

And Jackett admitted such errors proved so costly.

He said: ‘We had a lot of the game in the second half really, a hell of a lot of the game to lose it 3-1, but we did and they have done the job,

‘The first goal seemed a bit of a mix up between the defender and the goalkeeper and then Healey has capitalised and got in between.

‘It’s a header up in the air from Sean and I didn’t know whether it was going through to Craig, but it just teed up the forward anyway because he nipped in between the two.

‘It was a punt forward, but sometimes they work and you have to deal with them, and we didn’t particularly deal with that.

‘Then the second goal (McGrandles) looked soft from our point of view, it looked easy.

‘Even the third goal was our free-kick, they have won the header, they have battled away and broke, they have turned us, and we haven't recovered quickly enough.

‘Gilbey has gone through and made it 3-0 – so from a free-kick and situation where we are hoping to be able to score, it has deteriorated.’

Pompey have now conceded seven goals in their last two away league games – while have two League One wins on the road all season.