Duncan Ferguson’s Portsmouth view as Everton great sees Forest Green go down at Fratton

And the Forest Green boss felt his men were the team most likely score as the game wore on, as they suffered a 1-0 reverse. The bottom-of-the-table outfit proved a tough nut for the Blues to crack, as they got bodies behind the ball - and then produced one or two late chances.

Ferguson told Forest Green’s website: ‘It was very good, very good.The first half we were a bit passive in our shape and never quite got the pitch enough, but it was certainly a good shape and good tactical set-up for us. They never created the chances, maybe dribbled by a few of us the lad - otherwise we were good and going in 0-0 at half-time I was quite happy with it.

‘Of course we wanted to play 20 yards further up the pitch - I think you saw that in the second half. But we didn’t block a cross and we didn’t defend the far post well enough, but I thought there was a wee nudge on our full-back. We don’t get it and we didn’t get any of the 50-50 decisions. Other than that I was really happy.

‘Our goalie never really had many saves to make. The game opened up a little bit in the second half, it got a bit more broken and they had one or two counter opportunities.

‘They had a chance at the back post which the boy hits by the post and another shot the goalie saves. Other than that, they never had many and we never had many, but if anyone was going to score it was going to be us.’

Forest Green are on a desperate run of 15 defeats from 18 games and look certain to be relegated - with a 12-point gap to safety. After the Pompey performance, victory over Sheffield Wednesday and 2-0 loss to Plymouth. Ferguson believes their position doesn’t tell the full story of how his side are performing.

He said: ‘I thought we connected well and once we got a bit of confidence, moved the ball and changed the picture, I thought we looked good. We must have had 30 or 40 passes with one passage of play to get in on goal, that was a lovely move.

‘The football’s coming but we want to create more chances, it’s difficult to score goals, but we’ve got our defensive shape and stopped conceding. We’ve been in every single game, we’re certainly not getting ripped apart. There’s nae teams battering us and getting 20 shots on goal.

‘So that set-up has been good for us. Plymouth was a corner and today we don’t defend the back post. So a lot of headed goals are going in against us, but we’ve been very, very good.’