Miserable Match Report...

Ffs.......Welcome to Home Park for your first league match Mr Adams.....Your team didn't look fit, couldn't keep the ball or find a team mate when attempting to pass and resorted to too much of the hoof it up to Reuben garbage. Pompey looked fitter, passed the ball better, always had plenty of space and looked like they had more players on the pitch than us due to their superior movement/mobility/fitness. The ref was an utter cnut, penalising us for next to nothing and letting Pompey offthe hook all the time, the first penalty looked a travesty from the Lyndhurst. Ffs. Sheridan out.

Les Miserable wrote:

Ffs.......Welcome to Home Park for your first league match Mr Adams.....Your team didn't look fit, couldn't keep the ball or find a team mate when attempting to pass and resorted to too much of the hoof it up to Reuben garbage. Pompey looked fitter, passed the ball better, always had plenty of space and looked like they had more players on the pitch than us due to their superior movement/mobility/fitness. The ref was an utter cnut, penalising us for next to nothing and letting Pompey offthe hook all the time, the first penalty looked a travesty from the Lyndhurst. Ffs.  Sheridan out.

Enough of the waffle Les ffs, who was sat next to Jimmy in the Box?

Thankfully I couldn't see from the Lyndhurst, he was on the pitch at HT though presenting some trophy to some team.

Pieface got searched while going into the stand but not the people in front or behind him that made me laugh. Proof the club don't bother reading john lloyds questionnaire was proven as the queues for food, quality and pricing have all worsened despite fans complaining about it. A steward almost caused a punch up in one queue when she put some in front of another much to that mans anger.
No one sang 3 little birds so I guess that fad has ended.

Les Miserable wrote:

Thankfully I couldn't see from the Lyndhurst, he was on the pitch at HT though presenting some trophy to some team.

The slowest lap of honour ever wasn't it lol

Despite losing to one of our biggest rivals and playing like a pub team I thoroughly enjoyed not seeing the angels

So, yet another Brent/Webby brave new world enforced smooze hits the dust. It's a good news day, well apart from poor old Derek.
Of course it's not impossible that Brent Webb and Newell will one day feel like me and get fed up with the culture and tooddle off.. I look forward to that day.
Was the Webby inspired drum still there, or was it busy filming, having moved up the pecking order ?

The drum was seldom heard. The original drummer was busy filming and missing most of the action while he kept moving stations and setting up

Another song I've never heard before becomes the new Argyle staple while Pompey outsing us with four tunes from the 80/90s. FFS.

A pleasure to see Jerry Burnham (Bermudian Green) at HT

Angry wrote:

No one sang 3 little birds so I guess that fad has ended.

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Coxside_Green wrote:

Angry wrote:

No one sang 3 little birds so I guess that fad has ended.

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When it was played in the stadium I was referring too. I have no doubt it would be popular with the Groundhog Day fan fest.

The best 4th tier team I've ever witnessed.

After one game, where they beat our sorry shower of shite by one goal, via two penalties.

WALOS...



If they beat 105 points, I'll retract.

Mock Cuncher wrote:

The best 4th tier team I've ever witnessed.

After one game, where they beat our sorry shower of shite by one goal, via two penalties.

WALOS...



If they beat 105 points, I'll retract.

Just read this comment, surprised who it was made by, does he have a history of talking shit?

The first penalty looked dodgy. No doubts about number 2 though.

We were totally outplayed - no doubt about it. I'm sure they'll be in League 1 next season. Thankfully we don't have to play them every week. On the plus side Carey looks a real talent, and I thought Hartley and Nelson were very solid.

Portsmouth have definitely worked Reid out, though.

I watched Portsmouth make a sub where tha player going off had positioned himself on the opposite and slowly trundled off.

Clubs about to rock have a feel about them. A recently out of debt Portsmouth are just too big for L2.
They may well hit the 100 mark. We did I think.
Their club has always had a different mentality than ours. A bit tat and a bit too Leeds for my liking, but it will get them up and away, while we continue to serve debts to former owners for many years to come yet. We wuz wobbed.

Well, that was a a bit disappointing wasn't it? From an excellent win at Wimbledon to a game in which we were the better side for the majority of the game (though personally, I still felt we bottled it) on Tuesday night at home to Gillingham to a match in which we were by some considerable distance second best from minute 1 to 90. It was gut-wrenching to see us be played off the park by a team that when all's said and done are in the same league as us. It was all the more disappointing given the feel good factor that we had going into the match. It was to be Derek Adams first home game in the league and the fact that Portsmouth are always amongst the most eagerly anticipated opponents was just a happy coincidence. The rousing moment at kick-off where Three Little Birds was played over the tannoy and all 11 players clapped the Devonport End en masse set it all up for a momentous first home game...then that happened.

To be frank, we weren't just beaten. We were soundly beaten. The 2-1 scoreline doesn't fully reflect the domination that Portsmouth had over the game. The balance of play was completely theirs and (even though we did have particular spells where we looked like we may get back into the game) there was never really a moment where they didn't look the better of the two sides. In spite of all this however, my thesis on all of this is a controversial one. We still don't need to improve that much in spite of this loss. All we need to change...is the opposition. Under Derek Adams, we've been trying with various degrees of success to play a high-octane passing game in which there's lots of good movement all around the pitch and we generally play the ball on the ground but in a way that is fast and not at all slow or contemplative. Portsmouth were so fantastic at both playing their own game and countering us that they literally did not allow us to play our game.

As a football fan, you have a tendency to see any game through the lenses of your own side. If we came back from 3-0 down to draw 3-3 with 10 minutes to go, we would be praising it as the most amazing show of Argyle resilience and spirit that we had seen in years. If we chucked away the 3 goal lead in the same circumstances, we would be bemoaning our utter lack of bottle and defensive nous. Therefore on both occasions we would see it through the lens of how good or bad we were as opposed to how good or bad the opposition were. However, as obvious as this sounds, there are two teams competing in every football match. Sometimes you just have to say we were well beaten by the opposition. That may not be palatable but I think it's the truth.

We were up against a team who were so mesmerisingly good in every way that I almost began to find myself quietly admiring it. Their high pressing in their final third of the pitch was so energetic in terms of stamina exertion and so organised in terms of shape that it was far beyond ANY pressing I had ever seen at League Two level. Their on the ball play was just ridiculous. One of the things I prefer about Argyle under Adams to Argyle under Sheridan is that when we're on the ball, we attempt to play more as a team with coordinated moves then as a bunch of (albeit talented) individuals who looked as though they'd only just met that morning. Pompey however take the principle of playing as a team to a whole new level. The telepathy between all their attacking players, knowing exactly where to be at any one time for maximum stretching of our defence, was simply stunning. It was so well choreographed as to be almost more of an an art than a sport. They would constantly probe and test one area of our defence, knowing that we we would commit more men to that area, before quickly switching the play to where we weren't expecting it and were more stretched. I'm amazed to see so many people saying that it was Argyle who were bad more so than Pompey who were good. I noticed them perform that particular trick from the stands so many times and it truly was a cut above any other League Two side who've ever tried to do similar. Put simply, I was in awe of how well Portsmouth played. By a considerable distance, they were the best side to come here since we were relegated into League Two in 2011.

I think that will be worn out by the end of the season where they'll win the league with about 100 points. But even if I'm wrong there, there were certainly having a hot day against us. And, as unsettling a thought as this may be, when they're on a hot day like they were I think we will always be relying on an element of luck to get anything out of the game. They've got the best squad in the league and possibly the best manager. As good as we could be under Adams, I don't think we're at the stage yet where we can realistically hope to get much from those games without relying on luck. The good news though is that those games won't come very often. Most sides we face this season won't be a tenth as good as Pompey were. My suspicion at the moment is that we are more than good enough to see off the average sides in this league but a lot more work needs to be done before we're a match for a team as good as Pompey on their good day. But, that's only natural I guess given the respective budgets and squad strength of the two sides.

In the first half, I do think we tried to counter Portsmouth very well. We realised very early on in the game that the visitors' precise passing and gegenpressing (their emphasis on pressing immediately after they lost the ball) was going to stop us playing the free-flowing football that we were used to. We realised then, that the only way that we were every going to have a chance of winning was through stout defending and smart counter-attacking. In the first half, I genuinely think we managed this more or less as well as we could have against such a great side. Yes, we panicked slightly for the first ten minutes but when we got into the groove of this new gameplan we were fine. Nelson and Hartley were exceptional defensively as they almost always are. Even the inconsistent Mellor did alright against the exceedingly tough task of Gary Roberts and Enda Stevens going down his side. He was up against two of their best players and held them off pretty well bearing in mind he was getting little support from Boateng and Tanner both of whom had dire games defensively. Sawyer on the other side was once again reliable and didn't do much wrong. Whenever possible, we created our best attacking chances from breaking up the pitch and trying to make good use of the ball in the diagonal space between the corner flag. Pompey were too tight defensively for us to play anywhere else really so this was our best bet. Carey, Wylde and Tanner all had a half of looking fairly promising going forward albeit not quite having the perfect end product. The same went for Reuben Reid although the aforementioned caveat applies that it was against a ludicrously good side.

On the whole though, some of our play in the first half was pretty decent. The roaming of movement between the three attacking midfielders was decent and it was what created enough space for Argyle to have our only serious effort of the half: a fine shot from Carey that was just tipped over the bar by their keeper. It all looked like petering out into a solid enough first half in which we looked like getting into it a little bit more as half-time approached when Pompey went 1-0 up courtesy of a very dubious penalty. When I first saw it from the Devonport End, I didn't have any complaints about it. Seeing it again on the highlights, I now think it is a very well-executed dive. It's not even like the Alessandra penalties where Lewi always used to be behind the player and would put his leg where he thinks contact will be. It was a smarter dive even than that. Stevens can feel the pressure of Boateng closing in on him so he just stops still before any contact has been made. This therefore provokes contact and hey presto, the penalty is given. I didn't at all rate Boateng's performance on Saturday but he wasn't to blame for Stevens's successful tricking of the ref.

I've spent most of this post so far saying how actually, Argyle did as well as they could do against an unstoppable Pompey side. This does not apply to the second half where I thought we were pretty poor and again showed signs of mental weakness. The sort of mental weakness that I ranted about after Tuesday's loss to Gillingham. We seemed to have the mentality (and there are still clearly enough players still playing from the Sheridan era for this to be an issue) that we were behind and therefore out of it. The element of hopelessness began to sink into our players. All of our neat smart play and interchanging in the diagonal areas became a thing of the past very rapidly. We didn't look nearly composed enough when we were trying to clear the ball out of our defence and when we did get it up there, our attackers looked too shocked to get it and we lost it again very quickly because we simply didn't know what to do with it which was very frustrating.

Pompey's second goal was a long time coming and come it did from another penalty, this one indisputable as Adams rightly says in his post-match interview. I can take losing like we did in the first half, by just failing to execute the right plan against a top class team. I can't take the second half capitulation where the frightened rabbit mentality began to sink in. I will also give my first words of criticism to Adams for not making enough use of the subs bench. OK, we may not exactly have a lot of glittering options on the bench. But Pompey in the lead-in to their second were so completely and utterly dominant that the time came when we had to change SOMETHING even if none of the options looked particularly impressive. It had got to the point where twist could not possibly be worse than stick. The one change he did make was a switch to 4-4-2 with Brunt on for Nelse. Well, this did stem the flow briefly but only briefly. Brunt's energy and the change in shape re-vitalised us as an immediate impact but within 5 minutes we were back to being pegged into our own half permanently.

Annoyingly, as so often happened under Sheridan, we only started really playing football again when we were out of the game. We played fine after going 2-0 down and almost annoyingly, we then got one back thanks to a well worked team goal which culminated in an excellent strike from Wydle who had cut in centrally to take the shot. There was then a brief bombardment in stoppage time but we left it too little, too late.

So my final summary of the game....it wasn't perfect by any stretch. The second half annoyed me greatly. But on the whole I think we have to accept we were just well beaten. I don't want this to sound like grateful for our lot, green tinted, fingers in ears talk but when they were as good as they were on the day I don't think we can expect to be a match for them. At least, not with our respective budgets and us being so early on in the Adams rebuild process. What I will say though is as follows: we did have a lot of bad luck. I don't mean 'Carl Fletcher' bad luck in which basically every single loss was attributed to luck. In spite of their greater quality, Pompey did have more flukey ricochets drop their way than is usual for a match. They did also HAVE all of the refereeing decisions drop their way. Stupid little free kicks all over the pitch, as well as the handball penalty shout in the second half that didn't get given. We also btw should 100% have had a penalty at 1-0 down for a clear foul on Nelse in the area which led to him getting injured and subbed off. The referee bizarrely gave it the other way. So when you consider the quality of the opposition, the earliness of the season, the bad refereeing and otherwise luck...I don't think we need to make wholesale changes. I just think we need to carry on much as we are and if we do so, there won't be much of a need to change in the vast majority of League Two matches. If we lose against Carlisle and Northampton, laugh at me. For now, I'm convinced I'm right. Yes still some little things to solve. But I can't help feeling that we're still well and truly on the right path with Derek Adams as our manager. Player by player:

McCormick-6. Not quite as good as everybody is saying he was, I thought. He made some very good stops when Pompey were truly in the ascendency but his command of area and his kicking (whilst better than Tuesday night) were still not at his best level.

Mellor-7. Did well against the incredibly tough challenge of Roberts without enough support. Did ok when he got forward too but maybe didn't get forward quick enough. He's a funny old player is Mellor. Like stuffing a duvet, once you fix one aspect of it, the other needs to be stuffed once again. That's how I see the contrast between his attacking and defensive game.
Nelson-8 MOTM. When you consider he came under constant bombardment from Portsmouth all game, he did pretty well. Distribution maybe wasn't perfect but on the whole he answered the vast majority of questions Pompey asked of him when it came to positioning, physical contests and tracking.
Hartley-8. Similar sort of performance to Nelson really although he tired a little in the second half. I really like his ability to make it look as if he has so much more time on the ball than he actually does and then hook it away with a well weighted pass.
Sawyer-6. Meh. Two games against above-average-opposition, two broadly good games marred by one goal-costing clanger in each of them. He strikes me as the type of player who'll be very solid at this level and not show any obvious weaknesses in any aspect of his defending. But could still nonetheless be found out at League One level simply because he's that half a yard behind the pace of the game compared to the real top quality players.

McHugh-7. I'm not really getting all of these reviews that said he had a bad game. It's a low 7 for me. I think, especially in the first half, that his business in midfield and good passing ability was behind most of the breakaways that led to the few occasions where we did start probing Pompey and asking them a few questions. His passing was a bit more polished than it was on Tuesday. And he was also excellent when moved to centre-back in the 4-4-2. I've only given him as low as a low 7 due to a couple of weaknesses. Firstly, his decision making as to when he should go for the tackle and when not to was a little bit poorer than usual. Secondly, he doesn't advance into the wide areas as much as a central midfielder should. A truly fluid team will have CMs who come out and help the wide forward players when needed and also provide extra support to the full-backs when needed which is what O'Connor did so well last season. But these things are all part of McHugh's adaptation process to his new midfield role. He can learn and I'm sure he will.
Boateng-3. Dross, I'm afraid. I thought he played very well on Tuesday but could never get into the game for a moment on Saturday. There are large spells of the game where he just seems to be doing nothing at all. I could see Mellor on one side of him and McHugh on the other getting visibly frustrated due to the lack of support he was giving them. Add in the fact that he never got into his grove offensively like he has done in every match so far...and it's a stinker that he'll sooner forgot.

Tanner-5. Pretty poor performance and a low 5 out of 10 is the result. Completely passenger for much of the match. Especially in the second half, he went long periods without being close to the ball never mind touching it. He gets as high as a 5 due to his good use of the ball in the first half however. On those rare occasions which we looked vaguely like scoring, he was at the root of most of them.
Carey-5. Frustrating player. Technically speaking he's brilliant. He just seems far too comfortable with himself to be the truly effective player he has it in him to be though. There's being composed and making time for yourself like he does, then there's doing it too much. He takes the David Silva-esque calmness that I've mentioned in previous match reports and he too often subtracts the element of being focused on moving the ball forward. It creates a sort of languid effect where he too often has the ball nicked from his feet and too often underhits his passes. It's almost as if he has a self-defined personal brand which he can't bear to deviate from. But like Tanner, he was involved in all the good bits when we were countering Pompey well. For that he gets a 5. Please don't ever move him into the midfield two of a 4-4-2 again, though. Complete passenger.
Wydle-5. The highest 5 of the three and probably the best performing of the three behind Reid but still not good enough on the whole. Full credit to him for his commitment to tracking back defensively. He certainly tried hard. But trying hard isn't enough. To be blunt, I could try hard. His naivety when it came to actually figuring out how to defend was plain to see. He also fell over far too often. Some good wide play in the first half though and a well taken goal.

Reid-6. Yet again I thought Reuben produced a very underrated performance. In this, the post-Makelele era, people appreciate the dirty work in defensive central midfield a lot more. But people still don't appreciate players who do the dirty work up front! What I mean by the forward dirty forward is his ability to get his back to goal, successfully intercept and lay off all balls that come to him and then move forward off the ball in the hope that one of the attacking midfield three will do something useful with it. The point is though that it wouldn't be possible if he didn't do the dirty work of dropping deep and getting hold of the outball. It also allowed the Tanner/Carey/Wydle trio to get behind the Pompey defensive lines themselves. Me and the people I was watching the game with all agreed he had a very useful first half. Second half he maybe could have dropped deep to get into the game a little bit more but it was primarily not his fault. It was impossible for him to seriously do the dirty work type role he did in the first half when the three behind him all dropped off their game so dramatically. He's only one man and some of the talk about him being anonymous and even more so a 'spent force' shows footballing naivety. When any striker is as isolated as he was with the players behind him all looking like they've given up, it's gonna be bloody tough for him. I still maintain Reuben is an exceptional striker and we are lucky to have him at this club.

Brunt-5. Well, yes, the change of shape helped us briefly. But it WAS only briefly. We didn't really get going in the second half until the last few minutes when we were 2-0 down. The problem I have with Brunt is this. Yes, he knows how to try and play intelligent football. He is a very tactically aware player and usually sees the consequences of the game 2 or 3 steps in front of him like a chessmaster. He can be useful to us for this reason. But it so often comes to nothing because his touch and technique are so exceedingly poor. That's why I rarely give him more than 5 out of 10 or so. Because all the good work he does is ruined by his clumsy technical ability or lack thereof. That said, as someone else mentioned, he showed more urgency than most did so he was not all bad.

Cant agree on Reid green sam ..the reid i saw saturday was the rueben reid..that was lazy at times couldnt be bother to run for things at times looked if wanted to be somewhere else rather than on the pitch..he looks like his lost a bit of weight from last season but still dont think his properly fit...i think his getting a bit to comfortable knowing that no one is challeging for his place in the side id give him a wake up call and drop him for brunt who came on sat and had more shots at goal than reid in the first minute of him being on the park than rueben did the whole game

Sam, can you please post this a week or so after the match in fewch.

reading it so soon after the game just dunt feel roit

Sam, As they say...

Too much information.

Thanks.

No offence Sam but they're getting too long to stomach for me, I just can't be bothered. An exercise in work experience is it?

More painful than actually going to the game. Maybe Bob could include it in next month's fanzine
We all wish you well Sam. One word. Precis

Horses for courses....I like it Sam,, enjoyable read.

You mention as a mitigating factor Adams rebuilding however Pompey's manager is also relatively new isn't he and they have signed far more players than us.

I was warned by a Pompey colleague of mine that they were good, it looks like he was right. Humble pie to be eaten later.

Keep 'em coming Sam, us ex pats like a good read.

Just Watch and enjoy the game Sam this is not the daily telegraph your reports don't have to be so scientific and long. Short n sweet is more effective I found with others on here.