Gaffer: Pompey were terrible, an absolute shambles

The News gaffer for a day Ashley Arnell, 18, from Fratton, gives his verdict on the defeat to Blackpool...
Pompey fell flat against Blackpool. Picture: Joe PeplerPompey fell flat against Blackpool. Picture: Joe Pepler
Pompey fell flat against Blackpool. Picture: Joe Pepler

Right Ashley, say your piece.

That was terrible, an absolute shambles.

We didn’t look like we wanted to win the game. The long ball approach doesn’t work and is boring to watch.

Paul Cook’s side played the ball on the floor and had good footballers, but that has been ripped apart for players not good enough when we were in League Two. It is unbelievable.

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I am not expecting to get into the play-offs, but I’m expecting to beat teams like Blackpool.

We got used to seeing League Two teams hoofing the ball – well that was us on Saturday.

Many left before the end, were you tempted?

I very nearly did. The only time I have walked out was when we were 3-0 down to Newport in March 2016.

As soon as Blackpool’s second goal went in lots of fans left. You could see floods of people walking out of the North stand.

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At half-time, the Fratton end concourse was full of people angry about the performance and some people seated in front of me never came back for the second half!

At the final whistle the place felt empty, I was walking out with no hassle and no pushing, that normally doesn’t happen.

There was an atmosphere between fans, while the players didn’t look bothered on the pitch.

Anyone get your man of the match?

Well, Jamal Lowe was the only player who actually managed to take someone on.

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He put a great cross into the box on 10 minutes and you hoped someone would be there – but that wasn’t the case.

Dion Donohue producing our first shot on target in stoppage time summed up the game. So I’ll give him credit for that.

If we carry on playing like that, though, Lowe won’t be here next season, he’ll be snapped up by somebody else, that’s for sure.

Was it worse than Paul Cook’s Crewe?

That was almost a year ago – and the last time I booed at a game.

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Saturday was comfortably our worst display of the season and I would say worse than that awful Crewe game.

At least on that occasion it represented a turning point in the campaign, you won’t see that happen this season. We have too many injuries for that to happen again this time.

At least we tried to play proper football in that Crewe game, Saturday was more focused on hoofing to Hawkins.