Pompey 2 - Liverpool 3
Tony Adams had pleaded with the fans for a break, he had even taken his players away for a break.
Sadly, he didn't get a break where it really mattered – on the pitch.
And the result? One long break from management.
As it turned out, Liverpool was the last throw of the dice to save Adams' position as Pompey manager.
His Blues life was already precarious, the issuing of the dreaded vote of confidence a matter of days before betraying that fact.
Had Fernando Torres not intervened in such devastating fashion, he would still have been in a job today.
Never has the fine line between success and failure been so glaringly obvious.
One minute into stoppage time, Sol Campbell switches off and Torres beats David James at his near post with a header.
Hello three points to Liverpool and goodbye the 30th manager in the history of Portsmouth Football Club.
Only 20 minutes earlier the Fratton faithful had victory within their grasp, twice taking the lead against the title challengers during an electric second half.
At one point, strains of 'We Are Staying Up' could be heard reverberating around some parts of the ground.
The Blues fans even had the temerity to pinch Liverpool's Torres song and repeat it back to the trailing visitors in goading fashion.
Adams himself must have seen light at the end of the very dark tunnel he had found himself in.
Liverpool was to be his Manchester City, David Nugent or Hermann Hreidarsson his Pedro Mendes. The shoots of recovery could be seen here.
Then, with six minutes remaining, everything was turned on its head as the one constant of his 106-day reign struck again.
The sad truth is the sight of Dirk Kuyt and then Torres netting in the closing stages to steal the points had a certain sad inevitability about it.
Their intervention took the tally of points absentmindedly misplaced in the final nine minutes of Premier League games during the manager's tenure to a staggering nine.
That doesn't even take into account the AC Milan heartbreak, which effectively cost the Blues their place in the knock-out stages of the Uefa Cup.
To think, they could find themselves sitting comfortably in the palatial surroundings of eighth place today.
Instead, they languish in 16th – one point off the relegation zone and now without a manager.
Fine lines and all that.
The build-up to what would prove to be Adams' swansong had been brimming with positivity, too. You could feel the majority of the fans throwing their weight behind him as the week wore on.
On the playing front, the ex-Wycombe boss opted to take his side to Champneys Forest Mere on Thursday for a day at the exclusive health spar resort.
Even Benitez did his bit by fielding a dramatically understrength team – his true star names relegated to the bench, while talisman Steven Gerrard was out injured.
The stage was set, the players assembled, all that was needed was a star turn from the Pompey players.
They so almost pulled it off, too, only for the age-old problems to re-emerge and serve to be the architect of Adams' eventual downfall.
Forget talking a good game, forget massages at health farms, forget constructive team meetings, forget tactical issues and forget disappearing transfer budgets.
Adams had no jurisdiction over embarrassing individual errors committed while out there on the pitch.
Unfortunately for him, however, was his name on the closing credits and any criticism was invariably be sent in his direction.
Come the summer, the publication of the latest Rothman's Football Yearbook will detail the February 7, 2009, entry – Portsmouth 2, Liverpool 3.
There will be no footnote explaining how bad luck and individual mistakes influenced the scoreline, there will be no room for the listing of extenuating circumstances.
That's the cold, harsh, black and white of the situation the Blues boss found himself in.
And that is why he was sent packing barely 24 hours later.
For too long he and his team had been doing their damnedest to clamber back up the slippery slope which is dragging them towards the relegation zone.
The only problem has been that, for every encouraging step taken in the direction of blue skies and safety, someone has lost their footing and brought them all crashing back down again.
On Saturday, certain individuals didn't so much misplace their footwork as fail to remember to tie the rope around their waist.
As a result, Pompey continue to plummet in the direction of the yawning chasm.
Thankfully, their fall remains cushioned by West Brom, Middlesbrough, Blackburn and Stoke – all of whom lost once again a few hours earlier.
But they cannot continue to rely on the ineffectiveness of others for the remainder of the season and the manager paid the price.
Irrespective of Adams, Saturday was another unsubtle reminder of just why they are in this current predicament.
Peter Crouch's backpass brainstorm, Niko Kranjcar edging away from his posting on the post, Sylvain Distin's air kick, David James beaten at the near post at both posts, Sol Campbell given the slip by Fernando Torres – the list of culprits stretches on and on.
For all the good to their play – and there was plenty of it – it was overshadowed by a mere second of bad which culminated in another defeat.
They gave everything, too, as did the supporters who answered the call to arms and backed their club to the hilt with vocal backing which has been largely missed at Fratton Park this season.
Even John Westwood and his band were back in the Fratton end unifying the club, albeit robbed of musical instruments until the end of the campaign.
Come the final whistle you could see what the final scoreline really meant.
James sat dejected in his goal. Sean Davis immovable in the centre circle, head bowed and hands on hips.
Kranjcar, Glen Johnson, Hreidarsson, Nugent – to a man the players mourned as one.
Try telling anybody they don't care.
But a few slip-ups and all those endeavours on and off the pitch reaped nothing.
Now Adams has gone, yet the players whose mistakes have been a handbrake on Pompey's progress remain.
Let's just hope the next incumbent has better luck.
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Weather for Portsmouth
Sunday 12 February 2012
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Temperature: 3 C to 7 C
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