Bristol City 3 Portsmouth 0: Neil Allen's verdict - Dreadful Blues send transfer reminder as fringe players fail
This was no clever message from Pompey’s head coach, it was stating the blindingly obvious.
The quality of the Blues squad at Championship level has long been questioned, too much potential, too much inexperience, not enough sufficiently equipped for today.
John Mousinho has rarely been able to improve his side’s in-game performances using the bench this season, such are the glaring deficiencies.
Yet with a case of needs must during the chaotic Christmas schedule, he turned to his fringe players for the trip to Ashton Gate in a bid to maintain his team’s freshness.
Owen Moxon was named in a Championship line-up for just a second time, forgotten man Sammy Silvera was back in the team for the first occasion since September, while Paddy Lane had a second start in more than two months.
The outcome was the match effectively over at half-time, with Bristol City holding a comfortable 3-0 advantage.
Not that the trio, who were among four changes from the side which featured at Watford, should be solely blamed for the depressing defeat, far from it.
Marlon Pack endured his most uncomfortable afternoon yet during the ongoing experiment at centre-half, particularly in a tough opening 45 minutes.
However, with the calibre of Josh Murphy, Callum Lang and Freddie Potts asked to watch from the bench, it exposed the alarming weaknesses of this Pompey playing set-up.
Throw in Zak Swanson - goalscorer and man of the match at previous game Watford - and ironically finally Mousinho possessed a strong bench brimming with options to implement any required Plan B.
The problem was the result had been settled long before he could use their collective talents in a fruitless attempt to avert a loss.
Pompey’s starting line-up requires considerable strengthening in the forthcoming January transfer window, with players capable of coming straight into the side urgently required.
It has long been obvious, nobody needs persuading. Hopefully Tornante are in vociferous agreement as they will need to dig deep to keep the Blues’ hard-earned Championship status.
They will be asked to boost a Pompey team which now enters 2025 in the relegation zone following successive defeats on their travels.
Admirably, the magnificent away support continued to remain positive, singing of ‘Super Pompey are staying up’ - yet it needs a successful January transfer window to ensure that actually happens.
With Mousinho rotating his players, Terry Devlin, Moxon, Silvera and Lane were all recalled, with the players they replaced dropping to the bench.
Elsewhere, Abdoulaye Kamara was omitted from the 20-man squad completely, with Harry Clout called up from the Academy.
Still missing were Jordan Williams, Jacob Farrell, Regan Poole, Conor Shaughnessy and Mark O’Mahony.
In a fairly uneventful start to proceedings, City took the lead on 15 minutes following a poor pass out of defence by Marlon Pack.
The skipper’s misjudgment presented the ball back to the hosts, with Max Bird subsequently threading a pass through for Mehmeti to gallop onto and beat Pack for pace before finishing past Nicolas Schmid.
Pack had initially appealed for offside, but it was in vain, with the attacker having beaten the trap, and the Blues were 1-0 down.
Moments later, Nahki Wells drove in a fierce angled shot from right which Schmid did superbly to beat out and prevent instant further damage.
Pompey were struggling to fend off the Robins and on 28 minutes Mehmeti got the better of Pack for an aerial ball to send Wells racing clear, but he was flagged offside.
It was, however, 2-0 on 32 minutes with Mehmeti grabbing his second of the game.
A City clearance was met with a Pack header which was picked up by Mehmeti, who fed the ball wide to Wells - then finished the return pass first time past Schmid.
It worsened for the visitors just three minutes later after Ogilvie’s headed clearance inside the box was knocked back in by Ross McCrorie, with Luke McNally pouncing to fire in a shot.
That was brilliantly saved by Schmid, but Dickie was following up to convert from close range to make it 3-0, despite appeals for offside.
There were no substitutions at half-time for the Blues, but Mousinho finally introduced Potts, Murphy and Lang on 64 minutes, to huge cheers from the away fans, with Silvera, Ritchie and Moxon were those withdrawn.
Within seconds, Schmid had dived to his right to finger-tip away Sam Bell’s low left-footed cross which was heading into the far corner of the net.
The Robins had eased off, although substitute Christian Saydee should have helped himself to a consolation in stoppage time when he somehow failed to convert Murphy’s left-wing cross from close range.
And so it petered out into a comfortable City win - and Pompey back into the relegation zone to end the year 2024.