Portsmouth 1-1 Birmingham City - Report

The day started with me full of optimism but ended in disappointment. Today was my first game back at Fratton Park since my holiday kept me away from the opening games against Tottenham and Villa.

The excitement started for me the night before; dreaming of a Silva hat trick, Vukic magic and thrilling football that flowed so freely one week ago verses Everton.

The stage was set. The sun was shining, the players were signed and the Fratton Faithful came in expectation.

The team was unchanged from the team that beat Everton. The only change came on the bench where Griffin dropped out and replaced by Skopelitis.

Ashdown
Priske - O'Brien - Stefanovic - Vignal
O'Neil - Diao - Hughes - Robert
LuaLua - Silva

Subs: Westerveld, Skopelitis, Karadas, Viafara, Vukic

The game started at a good pace and only took 4 minutes before the opening goal was scored. Lomana Lualua cashed in on hesitant defending from Maik Taylor and Nicky Butt to poke the ball home from a couple of yards after a Laurent Robert corner.


Queue the foolish "easy" chants from the 18,000 Pompey fans. This was soon shoved straight back down our throats as Birmingham hit back straight away. A needless fowl by Robert by the touchline gave Pennant the opportunity to deliver a quality free kick into the box. Slack marking by Priske allowed Jarosik a free header from eight yards which he made no mistake in converting.

Not a lot happened for the rest of the half until an off the ball incident between Silva and Butt caught the linesman's attention at a Pompey free kick. The incident involved Silva jostling for position with Butt. The former Manchester United and Newcastle reject reacted angrily to this and kicked him up the jacksie. This resulted in a straight red card.

Now with the opposition down to 10 men, you would have expected us to come out the traps in the second half and really take the game to Birmingham. This did not happen. The first 10 minutes of the second half was all Birmingham, and we looked like the team down to 10 men.

It took till the 60th minute until Pompey started to come back into the game. This coincided with a nailed-on penalty appeal which was turned down as Tebily grabbed a fistful of Silva's shirt right under Gallagher's nose, but he amazingly waved play on. Then Vukic came on to replace Hughes. Why was this not done at half time? This was a game we had to win.

With 70 minutes gone Maik Taylo superbly pushed away O'Neil's 18-yard drive after good work from Robert.

Then 5 minutes later our next clear cut chance fell to veteran striker Silva. A well worked Pompey move found Silva with time and space in the box but his low left-footed drive was pushed away by Taylor.

This was the second time in 5 minutes the Birmingham keeper had saved his team.

Then with 10 minutes of normal time to play, the creative Vukic wasted a glorious chance when played clean through by Silva, but he hit his shot over from a few yards. This was a really bad miss.

Then with seconds left on the clock, the lazy but talented Robert blasts a free-kick towards goal. Taylor finds this shot to hot to handle and spills it in the direction of O'Neil. Instead of going at it with his left foot, he tries to toe poke it with his right. Wretchedly for us, the ball rolls agonisingly wide.

At full-time it ended Pompey 1 Birmingham City 1

wanc.co.uk's Pompey Man of the Match: Gary O'Neil

I really thought we would get 3 points today. Given the chances we created, we should have beaten the 10 men of Birmingham.

In my opinion, we are still lacking a top class goal scorer. We should have broken the bank during the summer to replace Yakubu. Some fans thought he was lazy, but one thing he guaranteed was goals. This is something none of our strikers at present can guarantee.

While watching the Manchester United v Liverpool game this lunchtime, the commentators suggested that Djibril Cisse would become available in the January transfer window. Ok, he would cost serious money (in the region of £5 - £7 million) but we sold Yakubu for £7.5 million, did not spend the £2million+ on Kamara and where did the money we had available to sign Michael Carrick ever go?

Now that would be a player to "get the fans excited" as we were promised by Milan.

It is time we stop trying to stay in the Premier league on the cheep and buy 1 or even 2 top class players to really improve our side and take us to the next level. We really are not that far away from achieving this. That is why it's so frustrating!

At this rate, teams like Wigan and West Ham will be overtaking us.

Anyway, enough of the negativity. Roll on Tuesday with our Carling Cup game away at Gillingham. Let's hope for a long and successful cup run this year.

Play up Pompey!