'Massive changes needed. Absolute shambles. Not Championship worthy' - Portsmouth faithful's brutally honest assessment after 'pathetic' defeat to Cardiff

And, understandably, they’ve been left dismayed with what they saw from the Blues in the Welsh capital.

A shambolic opening to the game saw the visitors concede twice in the opening 15 minutes. And while the Bluebirds were unable to add further goals to their dominance, it wasn’t lost on the Fratton faithful that the end result could have been so much worse.

Indeed, but for the performance of third-choice keeper Jordan Archer, who replaced the injured Nicolas Schmid in goal on the half-hour mark, a scoreline worse than the 6-1 thumping dished out by Stoke a couple of weekd ago looked on the cards.

John Mousinho held a behind-closed-doors post-match inquest in the changing room at the final whistle. No doubt, some home truths were dished out after he saw his side drop to bottom in the Championship table after their fifth defeat of the season to date.

But the head coach wasn’t the only one in the position to be brutally honest after last night’s showing. The Pompey fans have been sharing their thoughts, too. And as you’d expect, they’ve haven’t held back.

Here’s a selection of the views shared on X, formerly Twitter...

@Dann_PFC: Don’t let the scoreline distract us from how bad this performance was. This was Stoke away level of bad. Massive changes needed or we’re not winning another game for weeks.

@Pompey_1898: Absolute shambles of a performance. We don't organically create chances, selection is all over the place, injuries every 2 minutes, too many L1/L2 level players - all leads back to an awful transfer window, where we lost our best players and didn't replace/improve on them. Grim.

@LukeEllisPUP: We are missing Bishop & Shocks massively. The players we have to replace Robertson, Anjorin, Kamara and even MPH are weaker. We also lost Raggett’s aerial presence & Pack another year on too. We’ve moved up a level with a weaker side. It’s not hard to see why we’re struggling.

@pompeyrod: Hate to say it but we’ve got a solid League 1 team, major investment needed in January plus some ruthless decisions if we are to stand a chance of staying up.

@swannybegood: Just got home. He (Mousinho) got it wrong tonight. Cardiff stuck strikers either side of McIntyre and they had no idea how to deal with it. No width. Unbalanced. Pack’s positioning is a mile off. Sorensen and Lane up top. Too lightweight. Yengi and Saydee much better when on.

@GlynTookey: We paid peanuts and got a league 1 squad. We buy a div 3 Danish striker whose out of his depth. Sunday pub league player. Our most expensive signing 1.6 mill can get on the pitch. Half the team aren't upto this level. And Ogilvie may as well watch from the sidelines

@84Knight: Cardiff are supposedly one of the weaker teams in this league. Every single one of their players is levels above ours. Can’t think of one of ours I’d rather have in the team. Very worrying.

@AntSmithee: We just ain’t got enough, we have about 4-5 players that are Championship quality, the rest are not good enough to be playing week in, week out at this level. Some serious investment is needed in January otherwise unfortunately I think we are heading back to League One.

@Hurstisaballer: I absolutely love him to pieces and always will but we’re now at the point where as captain and most importantly a fan of this football club Marlon Pack has to drop himself. Take the time he needs to get himself back to a place where he deserves to play.

@leesotheran1: The reality is we’ve got a worse best outfield 11 this year than we did last year and we are playing in a vastly harder league. We’ve gone up a division but not improved anywhere.

@THillary50: That was poor, our team is weaker than last year, second best all over the pitch. I’m sorry but our recruitment has been well below what’s required. Kamara must be shocking if he can’t get in that midfield.

@SteveRi29957301: Desire and passion starts at training and in the dressing room. Mousinho and his staff are out of their depth.

@pfch92: Pathetic, abysmal, disgraceful. Just a few words that spring to mind. This group of players are not Championship worthy in the slightest.

@84Knight: Could/should have been another Stoke score line tonight. We are really really poor and already need at least 7 or 8 new players in January.

@HalakTheo: We are not good enough for this league. Bad recruitment has put us in this position. Eisner needs to spend to keep us up.

@CharlieFarnsba9: When the season started, Pompey showed guts, determination, commitment, passion and many other superlatives with great displays at Leeds, Boro and home to Blades - now they are gutless, weak, bereft of ideas, totally inept and an embarrassment - what’s gone on behind the doors?