‘Atrocious’ to free-kick hero: Portsmouth title winner bounces back after panning from own boss
It’s not often a player is publicly slated by their own head coach, but that’s what happened to Jack Sparkes - before the League One champion found the perfect League Two response on Saturday.
He suffered the ignominy of being branded a ‘disgrace’ by his own boss.
Pompey League One title winner, Jack Sparkes, was publicly panned by Bristol Rovers head coach Steve Evans earlier last month, as the outspoken figure ripped into the left-back.
League One title winner makes right headlines for Bristol Rovers
Sparkes was the focus of Evans’ ire after a 3-1 home defeat against Cambridge United, where the cultured left-footer found himself under fire for his display as he picked up a suspension.
The blast made plenty of headlines as the Scot said he wouldn’t have played the ensuing game anyway, given his efforts in the loss.
‘He deserves to go. He was atrocious today, anyway,’ Evans stated at the time. ‘He wouldn’t have played at Oldham. So, there we go. So he’s out for Tuesday, doesn’t matter to me, because he wouldn’t have played anyway. He was atrocious
‘Defensively, we were poor today, the whole back five were poor. Yusuf (Akhamrich) has many plaudits and Jack Sparkes, too, but they didn’t help the middle three, who were having a very difficult afternoon by their own standards and their own performance levels.’
Sparkes admits he benefitted from keeper error
Sparkes found the perfect riposte at the weekend, however, as he stepped with the kind of dead-ball quality which made him a big part of Pompey’s 2023-24 League One victory.
The 25-year-old delivered eight assists from 43 appearances on the way to that title glory, but the former Peterborough and Exeter City went it alone in the victory over Accrington Stanley on Saturday.
Sparkes’ 53rd-minute free-kick sealed the 2-0 victory, as he found a gap between the wall and the post to curl a 25-yard effort beyond Ollie Wright.
Incredibly given his quality from set-pieces, it was the player’s first goal from a free-kick in his professional career, as he vied with former Pompey and Bognor man, Tommy Leigh, over who would get to take the shot.
The player was honest enough to admit he was the beneficiary of some questionable organisation from Accy keeper Wright, over how he set his wall up.
Sparkes told Bristol Rovers’ official website: ‘Tommy was going to have it, and then the keeper had set his wall up so far to the right, and the gap was just massive, so it obviously suited me to just go round. That’s what I did.
‘I don’t think I’ll ever have a keeper set it up like that, probably again, because I’m not sure what happened there, to be honest. It was nice to finally score (a free-kick). I think that was my first free-kick, actually, in professional football. It was nice to actually get one.’