Hull City 0 - Pompey 0
Hull – a part of the world brimming with surprises. It's just a shame Saturday's match was rather too predictable in both execution and result.
Nonetheless, Pompey find themselves taking another tentative step towards Premier League safety.
It may not be pretty at times, but the Paul Hart battle plan is proving undisputedly effective in its employment.
The football is not inspirational, yet the decision to appoint him certainly was.
Four points clear of the relegation zone and armed with favourable goal difference, the Blues are inching towards extending their top-flight stay.
Grinding their way to the target rather than cruising they may be, but as long as they get there no-one can truly criticise the ways or means.
A goalless draw at Hull at the weekend was as dull as they come, the humdrum only broken by a sending off for Glen Johnson.
Even then, his dismissal had a certain expectedness about it to just about sum up the occasion.
To think the sizeable Pompey following venturing to the KC Stadium for the very first time were treated to llamas inhabiting a neighbouring park.
A large paddling pool and children's adventure playground prospered underneath its impressive shadow.
Even blue skies and sunshine intruded on the grim north to debunk other great myths.
Shocked? We all were.
It's just that once the ground was entered and the football kicked off, it was very much tales of the expected.
A match as predictable as the decision to once again not select Theofanis Gekas for the squad.
It was about two struggling sides – whose weakness is scoring goals – tentatively fighting it out for a draw both would gladly accept.
The game offered little excitement, few goalscoring opportunities and a fear factor which sucked all imagination from those concerned.
In the current desperate climate, it marked the perfect conclusion, an amicable settlement between the feuding parties.
They might as well have agreed on the outcome and scrapped the waste of 90 minutes, thereby also saving Pompey fans going through the rigmarole of a 500-mile round trip.
In addition, Nick Barmby's nose would remain perfectly formed rather than rearranged by a Peter Crouch stray elbow.
And, of course, Johnson would be free to feature against West Bromwich Albion next weekend.
Forget the unfortunate manner of his 80th-minute exit, it wouldn't take Nostradamus to see the England man was going to struggle to see out the match.
From the moment the 24-year-old attempted to take out Kamil Zayatte in sprawling scissor fashion, he was standing on the precipice.
Chris Foy correctly brandished a yellow card and Johnson was a marked man.
It's a shame he failed to remember that.
Barely two minutes later he crudely pole-axed Barmby, which had the howling home fans baying for blood. Foy resisted.
Several niggling fouls by the Pompey man followed, stretching deep into the second half, and still Foy resisted.
It was a final warning which was showing alarming patience.
So it wasn't without its irony that the tackle which would ultimately lead to Johnson's Hull demise wasn't even produced by him.
Substitute Dean Marney stepped in to clear and with his follow through clattered against Johnson's right leg.
The resulting second yellow card was unquestionably an injustice of the highest order.
Then again, many would argue he could have received it plenty earlier.
Now Pompey will be without one of their most influential performers in a must-win match against doomed West Brom next weekend.
Not only that, Johnson represents one of the rare attacking outlets in a team which otherwise struggles to create an even reasonable amount of goalscoring opportunities for Crouch.
At the KC Stadium, Hart's side's Achilles' heel was once again glaringly obvious as they foundered in their bid to carve out openings.
David James afterwards described the display as 'horrible and ugly'. He was being rather kind.
Yet, as the England keeper also pointed out, it was 'satisfactory' at a time of the season when it's results and not performances which will keep Pompey in the Premier League.
Hart has galvanised this team into one which has lost just one of his six matches in charge, picked up nine points and conceded an impressive five goals.
They are statistics predecessor Tony Adams could only dream of. Now there was a manager who took excitement and drama to extremes.
In the end it put Pompey in the mess Hart inherited and cost the former England skipper his job in the process.
Perhaps bore goalless draws aren't that bad after all.
Still, there were the occasional flickering moments of entertainment amid all the monotony on Saturday.
Younes Kaboul should have broken the grim deadlock on 36 minutes when Niko Kranjcar swung in a corner which picked out the unmarked defender.
Yet with Matt Duke bearing down, he sent his free header over the bar.
Hampered by the completely ineffective Manucho, Hull were just as short of ideas, even with the impressive Barmby pulling the strings.
It was Hayden Mullins who gifted them their best opportunity, in the 63rd minute looping a crazy headed back pass into the direction of Craig Fagan whose goal-bound header was magnificently clawed by James.
Then came the moment of Johnson madness, Foy waving his red card to condemn the England right-back to a place in the stands against West Brom.
There was still time for a final piece of drama though, even if that appeared to arrive in a motion as slow as the rest of the KC Stadium surroundings.
In stoppage time, Nadir Belhadj swung in a free-kick from the left and Hermann Hreidarsson rose to plant a header which Duke allowed to bounce against the far post.
A wave of disbelief swept over the KC Stadium, more at this late excitement than anything.
Goalless it remained to cap a dreary afternoon's football which nonetheless could go a long way to providing many more Premier League memories.
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Weather for Portsmouth
Sunday 12 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 3 C to 7 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North west
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 3 C to 7 C
Wind Speed: 18 mph
Wind direction: North west
