Legend Knight gives verdict on Pompey bust-up

There's only one significant talking point from the weekend.
Substitute Jack Whatmough looks shocked as Pompey fall to defeat to Stevenage on a day of drama at Fratton ParkSubstitute Jack Whatmough looks shocked as Pompey fall to defeat to Stevenage on a day of drama at Fratton Park
Substitute Jack Whatmough looks shocked as Pompey fall to defeat to Stevenage on a day of drama at Fratton Park

The ‘incident’ at half-time on Saturday is currently under investigation, so I can’t really go into it too much.

But things like this have always happened at all clubs at all levels and for a very long time.

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Passions can run high surrounding a game, but it’s important things do not go over the top.

That’s the same whether it’s in football or in the work place in any other field. There’s a level and it shouldn’t be crossed.

There’s no getting away from the fact what happened at the interval did impact the outcome of the game, however.

The substitutions proved costly, no doubt, because the manager was then restricted in what he could do to chase the game.

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When the club release a statement things will become clearer and I can say more, but until that point we are going to be dealing with a lot of conjecture and rumour.

But it is fair to say what happened affected the outcome on an afternoon when things started quite brightly.

We were moving the ball around quickly and crisply early on. Unfortunately, we were lacking in our end product.

It seems against our opponents that, if they can keep us out for 20 minutes, they are then able to grow in confidence.

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What Stevenage did was work very hard without producing a huge amount of quality.

But teams don’t have to work very hard for their goals against us.

That leads to a situation where teams are turning us over, yet we haven’t been blown away by anyone this season.

For the first goal, five players have been taken out of the game by the corner of our 18-yard box.

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The players get dragged to the ball and, when you watch the goal back, you don’t have to be an expert to see the errors.

I couldn’t speak on the radio afterwards because I was trying to get my head around it.

We were all over the place, didn’t get a proper clearance on it or deal with the ball in the box.

These kind of mistakes are always going to give you mountains to climb when you give them away.

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We got a goal back, but did we really look like we were going to get anything out of the game? I wasn’t convinced.

Up to the goal, and not considering what happened at half-time, I thought the game was heading towards a draw.

It’s just frustrating that it feels like the win at Luton ends up counting for nothing.

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