What a depressing match report to have to write, sat on the coach in the car park at the Britannia Stadium, that soulless testament to footballs total lack of imagination. Considering the stage of the season we have reached and the upcoming fixtures there are precious few nails left to be knocked into this coffin. If only the failures weren't so repetitive.
The match started with a couple of major surprises, Kanu starting up front and Ashdown in for the presumably injured James. Niemi was on the bench, a bone of contention with me as one is a proven premier league keeper and one isn't. We get the one who isn't. Herman Hreidarrson came in at left back and Ben Haim reverted to the right back role.
Pompey started on the front foot, got the ball down and passed it without any real penetration until around the quarter hour mark (I'm on a coach, what do you want from me?) when Dindane knocked the ball forward and tripped over the obligingly trailing leg of a Stoke defender. After a huge delay, Boateng stepped up to take the penalty and passed it straight to the keeper. The first half continued along the same lines, the Stoke fans becoming increasingly frustrated by their inability to carve out any realistic chances. Pompey kept knocking the ball around nicely with some slick passing, Kanu being the centrepiece of our attacking threat with Dindane looking subdued. A few hopeful shots drifted wide from O'Hara, Kaboul and Kanu. Ashdown was a spectator but our failure to score from the only real chance we created was ominous.
The second half was always likely to begin with a storm of Stoke pressure as I warned the boy. When we kicked off and that storm failed to quickly appear, Pulis reached for the managers elementary book of tactics and hauled off Beattie and Salif Diao to allow Sidibe and some other stripy average player, (cut me some slack, still on the coach...) to replace them. Instantly the changes had an effect as Stoke stepped it right up and the fresh legs revitalised them. Suddenly the ball was raining into our box and we were reduced to the odd isolated break away that came to nothing. Throw-in followed corner, followed by long cross-field balls and you could smell a goal coming even though Ashdown was still not being tested.
Would Hart do something about it and replace the obviously flagging Kanu with Pigeon? Would he be caught in a paroxysm of indecision again? I predicted to the boy that the change would probably follow the ball settling into the back of our net. Again we were treated to the pantomime of indecision as Groves called Pigeon over then sent him back twice after consulting, where Pigeon just stood, looking diconsolate and disdaining even to pretend to warm up. There then followed the usual five minute lecture with a clipboard before he could come on, (frankly if you have that many instructions to give when bringing on a player for 15 minutes you have to ask what preparation goes on prior to games). Eventually, with the ball going dead, the board went up and Dindane was hauled off and on came Pigeon. So we had finally made a tactical change when needed, probably the wrong one, and before Pigeon could even touch the ball it was in our net as a Stoke player ran on to a flick on and curled it past our fourth best professional keeper into the net. I've seen no replays but it struck me that I've seen James and Niemi save those, but I've never seen Ashdown save one.
What was left to do? Fall apart, and Pompey obligingly collapsed into a soggy mass, with Stoke first to every ball. Webber came on for Mullins and spent his short time on the pitch failing to achieve anything of any consequence.
One goalmouth scramble aside where the ancient Kanu, now walking like a geriatric patient whose Zimmer has been nicked, tried desperately to find someone with the remotest striking instincts to lay the ball off to, that was it.
Another desperate defeat, and another triumph for the prize turnips who run our football club. We have some really good players, we are good enough to stay in this division. We can do everything well except win. The mindbogglingly lunatic persistence with a formula that has been tried, tested and found to be an abject failure has probably condemned us to the championship next season. I hope these bumptious, self-satisfied people who have given us so many lectures on their brilliance were here today to see the chasm between the fools paradise they live in and hard reality.
