Portsmouth’s wait for a first Championship win of the season continued on Saturday afternoon as they held promotion contenders Sheffield United to a 0-0 draw at Fratton Park. Pompey sit 23rd in the table with four points from their first seven games, with just Cardiff City below them. A clutch of sides are only narrowly above John Mousinho’s side, however, with just five points between Pompey in second bottom and Hull City in 12th.
The Blades could not find a way past Pompey on Saturday and their manager Chris Wilder made an encouraging prediction for the Fratton Park outfit. He said: “They will make it as difficult for other teams as they made it for us. Teams will get beaten here if Pompey play like that all season.”
Mousinho responded to Wilder’s comments, as he said: “It is nice to hear that from such a good coach and manager. He has so much experience at this level and the level above. We need more of that, we need sides to come off and know they have been in a match and know it isn’t going to be easy here. We have spoken about that at length this week, having conceded six in our last two home games, and we need more of that from the players. I am really pleased we went toe-to-toe with a promotion-chasing team. If we had come away with a win no one would have been shocked, but a point was a fair result.”
As expected in the early weeks of the Championship campaign, the table is proving congested with not many points to separate the majority of the division. Each side has played seven games which marks one sixth of the season and here we take a look at the latest odds for relegation and how the bookmakers rate each side’s chances of surviving in the Championship. Using odds from Sky Bet, here’s how Pompey’s survival hopes are rated against their rivals...
