Gaffer For A Day: New Luton man offered Portsmouth more than I expected. He'll be a good signing
Gaffer For A Day, Ben Newnham, aged 49, from Pontefract, West Yorkshire, delivers his assessment of Pompey’s 1-0 win at Sheffield Wednesday
How do you assess Pompey’s performance?
It was two struggling teams, but I always thought that, should we score first, Sheffield Wednesday’s brittle confidence issue would mean the game would be ours.
As it turned out, after Adrian Segecic scored in the 65th minute, it looked like the Owls had 10 men, we kept the ball really well and were quite professional. For the first time in 48 years supporting Pompey, I never felt the opposition were going to score.
Ebou Adams showed what we’ve been lacking all season by bringing in some real energy, he’s somebody who’s prepared to drive the midfield a bit. I love Marlon Pack, but we haven’t had that energy and physical presence in midfield all season.
Saturday was a necessary win, but we deserved it.
What did you think of Millenic Alli’s debut?
I thought he was good, he had a real physical presence, which Minhyeok Yang struggled with. Not only did he seem to offer defensive responsibilities, but he looked like he had that sharpness about him. You actually expected something to happen.
When Josh Murphy isn’t playing, we’ve lacked wingers who you believe can actually create something, yet Alli definitely showed he has that bit of X-factor which could be an asset for us going forward.
I thought he was brilliant against Sheffield Wednesday, offering a lot more than I expected. The feeling from all the Pompey fans around me is that he's going to be a good player for us.
He certainly looked like he was at Championship level, which you wouldn’t have necessarily thought considering he’s not been playing football in League One.
Who stood out for you?
That was Conor Shaughnessy’s first full 90 minutes since coming back from injury and he makes us look so much more solid at the back.
We came under pressure from a lot of corners, certainly in the first half, but he helped us look like barely conceding, while he was pivotal for the goal, setting up Alli to create it.
Man of the match was a difficult decision because Colby Bishop was really good up front, he held the ball up well and retained possession, while Conor Chaplin had a good game also.
I didn’t know the bloke next to me, but I asked him who he thought was man of the match. He said Bishop or Shaughnessy - which was the same as me. So I’m sticking with those two, but going for Shaughnessy.
What do you want from the transfer window?
Without going into the Eisner debate, which is an argument for another day, the window has been slow for us, despite a lot of noise around the necessity to get bodies in.
However, from what we saw at Hillsborough, Adams and Alli are two positive signings who are going to influence the team. I don’t think I can say that about many others who have signed in recent windows. They haven’t made us stronger - but these two do.
I’d like us to get a really good central defender, we also need another central midfielder, certainly with Pack injured.
We also need somebody physical like Bishop who can also run, should we want to play in a different way.
I’m a massive Bishop fan, but there are times when under the cosh that you need somebody who can run in behind defenders. We don’t have that pacy centre-forward.
Nicolas Schmid - 7
Terry Devlin - 7
Regan Poole - 7
Conor Shaughnessy - 9
Connor Ogilvie - 7
Andre Dozzell - 7
Zak Swanson - 7
Adrian Segecic - 7
Conor Chaplin - 8
Millenic Alli - 7
Colby Bishop - 8