‘Only have themselves to blame’: Portsmouth slammed after Hull City disappointment
Pompey fell to a 1-0 defeat against promotion-chasing Hull City on Saturday afternoon.
Pompey only have themselves to blame for Saturday’s 1-0 defeat to Hull City.
That’s the resounding verdict of George Elek from the respected Not The Top 20 podcast, who believes it was ‘ridiculous’ the Blues were the losing side at Fratton Park.
John Mousinho’s men suffered their second defeat in four days over the weekend, with Matt Crooks’ 73rd-minute strike the difference on the south coast. The midfielder was able to capitalise on a costly mistake from Adrian Segecic and the Pompey backline.
Although the Blues tasted defeat, it didn’t paint the complete picture of the afternoon, with the hosts controlling large parts of the play at PO4.
Clear Pompey verdict after ‘ridiculous’ Hull defeat
And Pompey’s disappointment in front of goal has been highlighted by Elek, who has been left dumbfounded as to how the Blues’ have fallen to defeat, despite dominating proceedings.
‘I'm not going to tiptoe around that this was absolutely ridiculous,’ he said on the latest episode of NTT20.
‘This game of football for John Mousinho and for Pompey coming away from this having lost the game is remarkable.
‘Now, they only have themselves to blame because it's important to say that the goal they conceded was pretty much as avoidable a goal you could possibly concede.
‘Just error after error, with just poor back passes, a failure to clear lines and Matt Crooks profiting from that and eventually the ball falling to him in the box and him beating Schmid.
‘But in terms of who is at fault, you could look at probably two or three players who should have done better with that.
‘And it's also worth pointing out that the Pompey themselves, a lot of their shots came from range. A big feature of this Pompey team are Swanson and Devlin basically carrying the ball forward down the right and left-hand side and letting fly.
‘It worked quite well recently. They came close a couple of times here, but weren't able to score.
‘But it's the fact that Hull had a shot in the first minute through Joe Gelhardt. They didn't have a single other shot until the 73rd minute when Crooks scored thanks to Portsmouth's poor defending. And they didn't have another shot for the rest of the game.
‘So two shots in the game. And this is something that Hull have done relatively consistently.’
Pompey relegation stance as survival battle heats up
And Elek, who also supports 23rd-placed Oxford United, has stressed he still doesn’t see Pompey as possible relegation contenders given their run of impressive displays.
He added: ‘Pompey fans will be feeling just how baffled as to how they've failed to get a point from this.
‘It's not the only game that this has happened with recently as well. There was the Sheffield United game at home, where they were by far the better team and lost it 1-0.
‘What we can say is that Portsmouth are playing very well.
‘And even though they are certainly in the relegation mix currently on 19th with 39 points, as an Oxford fan, I'm not looking at them as being really in this because if they continue playing the way they're playing, they're going to be well clear.’
Your next Pompey read: Portsmouth boss’ Millenic Alli message after Hull City dip for Luton Town man