Pompey boss stands by Sonko
Steve Cotterill leapt to the defence of under-fire defender Ibrahima Sonko and told the rest of the Pompey team: Work for each other.
The Pompey boss offered a frank assessment of the 29-year-old on-loan centre-back, who was roundly criticised for his performance in the 2-0 defeat to Cardiff City at the weekend.
Sonko was at fault for the second goal when he failed to clear his lines and presented the ball to Jay Bothroyd – even though the defender got a call from goalkeeper Jamie Ashdown.
Aside from that basic defensive error when Ashdown also should have taken a share of the blame, it is Sonko's wayward distribution which is a major cause for concern.
But Cotterill believes his team-mates are not doing enough to help the defender, even though the towering centre-back is prepared to cover the failings of others.
Cotterill, who also hinted that the matter had been discussed at length in the dressing room, said: 'We have spoken about it in the dressing room so let's get it out in the open. Sonko is not the best footballer, for sure.
'Don't ask him to be stepping out from the back, passing it forward and rolling it into strikers because he's not that kind of player.
'If we had big Jay Bothroyd in our team, Sonko could smash it up to him and all of a sudden they look like good balls from Sonko.
'But before I came here, we suffered from the fact that we can't head it in our own box. Throughout pre-season, we were a soft touch in our own box.
'You have got to try to put a team together and I told the players we should have tried to help him out a bit more, taken the ball off him so it's a shorter pass because he does things in our box that other players can't do.
'They have got to look after him a little bit more in that respect because he looks after them. But people don't always see those points.
'He is probably going to get some criticism but he will do things that the other boys won't do.'
Cotterill will know more than most that defensively, his side are nowhere near where he wants them at present.
Aaron Mokoena looks a shadow of the player who was so inspirational in Pompey's run to the FA Cup final, while new left-back Carl Dickinson has yet to find his feet at Fratton Park.
Hayden Mullins has perhaps been the pick of the defence at right-back – even though it is not his natural position and Ashdown is bound to be rusty having gone so long without regular first-team football.
Cotterill said: 'It's about trying to formulate a team.
'That's the tough part about it. You come to a football club that has no defenders from last season and no goalkeeper.
'The only person who played in defence on a regular basis last season was Aaron Mokoena and maybe Hayden Mullins who played all over the place.
'It will take some time.'
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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