Gaffer: Pompey were caught cold at Bradford

What did you make of that?

We seemed surprised how Bradford pressed so aggressively. I don’t know why, they played Shrewsbury on TV last week and did exactly the same – we were caught cold.

The performance wasn’t too bad but defensively we were poor and that cost us.

Also, I thought it was wrong selecting Connor Ronan instead of Stuart O’Keefe. On that horrendous pitch, Ronan couldn’t play his natural game and was a bystander.

You mentioned the defending?

All three goals came from our mistakes.

The first was a corner which came out of nothing after Dion Donohue’s big mistake, which is a shame because he has been good this season.

I couldn’t quite work out how the second went in. It looked like we would clear it and then Matt Lund has poked it in.

And the third was down to poor goalkeeping.

Who was your man of the match?

Brett Pitman was our biggest threat going forward and really looked like a captain.

There must have been four or five times when opposition players were down and he was dragging them up off the ground to get the game going.

Also, when we were 2-1 down, he was going around our players geeing them up. I haven’t seen him do that before – normally he is quite focused.

As for his goal, he caught it well and from there I thought we would win. But that didn’t happen.

Can Pompey still make the play-offs?

I think it’s going to be harder than ever now. We need to win all our remaining games, while our goal difference is not as good as those around us.

We have now lost 18 matches this season and are still in with a chance, which shows it is a very poor league. Still, who would have said in mid-February that we would be in this position? It keeps it interesting for the final few weeks of the campaign.

Andy’s Pompey ratings...

Luke McGee – 5

Nathan Thompson – 7

Jack Whatmough – 6

Matt Clarke – 6

Dion Donohue – 4

Ben Close – 5

Jamal Lowe – 6

Gareth Evans – 6

Connor Ronan – 5

Kal Naismith – 6

Brett Pitman – 7