Ten-man Blues Gunned down
Pompey's hopes of securing their Premier League safety suffered a dent as they tumbled to a 3-0 home defeat to Arsenal.
Paul Hart's side were outclassed by Arsene Wenger's young side -
despite the Frenchman making eight changes to the team who lost their Champions League semi-final first leg at Manchester United during the week.
Arsenal were 2-0 up at half-time as Nicklas Bendtner's double put the
visitors in cruise control.
And Carlos Vela's drive early in the second half and Noe Pamarot's red card completed a miserable afternoon for the Blues.
Bendtner opened the scoring in the 13th minute after a mistake from
David James saw the striker's header dribble over the line and the
Gunners hitman doubled the advantage from the spot when Andrey
Arshavin was adjudged to have been fouled by Sean Davis - despite the
Russian appearing to suggest the penalty should not have been
given.
Pompey rallied bravely early in the second half, but saw great
opportunities wasted as substitute John Utaka, in particular, failed to
get Pompey back into the game, having already seen Nadir Belhadj and Peter Crouch miss decent chances in the first half.
And they were made to pay as the points were sealed for Arsenal 11 minutes after the restart as Vela fired home with a clinical finish into James' far corner.
A poor day was completed for the home side when Pamarot was given his
marching orders for fouling the impressive Arshavin on the edge of the box with the Arsenal man set to go through on goal.
But although it was a setback for Pompey, with West Brom, Middlesbrough and Blackburn all slipping to defeat, if Hart's men can avoid defeat in next week's trip to Ewood Park, they will be in pole position to claim survival.
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Weather for Portsmouth
Saturday 11 February 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: -4 C to 4 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 3 C to 7 C
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