Portsmouth 1 Charlton Athletic 3: Jordan Cross' verdict as another bleak Fratton chapter sees Cowley lose more blue hearts

With each passing game without victory, every disappointment on the pitch and performance short of the basic qualities needed to perform for this football, club hearts are being lost.

And so it proved as 10-man Pompey started 2023 with another dispiriting episode against Charlton Athletic.

Two ruthless examples of how conceding cheap possession can be terminal led to a 3-1 loss, which sees the visitors extend their unbeaten run at Fratton Park into an 18th year.

Cowley’s side will not get many better opportunities to improve their terrible league form against opposition who mirrored their eight games without success at the start of the afternoon.

But the same anxiey-ridden issues which afflict this group led to a defeat which means it's now one win in 14 on home soil.

Put another way, there’s been three interest rate hikes, two Prime Ministers and two monarchs since Pompey last won at home in the league.

Another year over and a new one just begun - but what have Pompey done?

Well, gone backwards in terms of the League One table. Twelve months ago, Cowley’s side were sat ninth on 36 points from 22 games.

Fast forward a year and the latest in a long line of league disappointments leaves the Blues 12th on 31 points from the same amount of fixtures.

Cowley will argue the progress in terms of squad, but it’s that stagnation against the backdrop of six seasons at this level which is driving the perfectly understandable anger swelling around PO4 right now.

Chants of ‘Cowley sort it out’ summed up the current mood and had morphed into further rounds of ‘we want Cowley out’ and ‘you’re getting sacked in the morning’ as apathy fills the Blues fanbase.

Quite frankly answers are needed - right now - to save Pompey’s season and Cowley’s tenure.

The Pompey boss made three changes from the team who collected a 2-2 draw against Ipswich Town last time out.

And it was a switch in formation, as the Pompey boss reverted to a 4-4-2 for the first time since the November 18 draw against Derby.

Leading scorer Colby Bishop dropped to the bench along with Josh Koroma, with the injured Clark Robertson sidelined.

That allowed Dane Scarlett to start his first game in nearly a month, as he was partnered with Joe Pigott up front. Ronan Curtis was the other player to come into the starting XI.

Pompey paid their respects to football icon that is Pele, with a poignant minute’s applause before kick-off following his death at the age of 82.

It took 61 seconds for the Blues to fashion their first chance with pressure leading to Michael Morrison volleying over from the edge of the box.

A sizeable stoppage then ensued after Miles Leaburn fired narrowly past the post, with the hulking striker taking a Morrison clearance square in the face at close range.

Chances then arrived at both ends as a decent 25-yard Curtis drive was pushed away by Ashley Maynard-Brewer, before Albie Morgan’s free-kick hit the wall. That after Sean Raggett fouled the tricky Jesurun Rak-Sakyi.

With Pompey’s current plight, the first goal felt more crucial than ever.

But the home crowd were doing their bit to rouse their side with the volume going up after Zak Swanson’s energy earned his side the corner. The resulting Marlon Pack was slightly behind Pigott as he headed over.

The opener did go the way of the visitors after 23 minutes, however.

It was Pigott who lost possession around the halfway line, allowing the ball to be worked to Rak-Sakyi - who chopped the ball inside Raggett in the box before dispatching past Griffiths.

The signs of discontent were surfacing by the time the array of Rak-Sakyi skills came out on another jinking run which saw him go to ground in the box, when eventually challenged. The ref saw no foul.

Scarlett was trying to take the fight to the visitors, however, as he drove forward through the middle 12 minutes before the break, before being crowded out.

Pompey’s fragile confidence was looking increasingly brittle, though, with Griffiths parrying and then saving with his feet to deny Leaburn from Scott Fraser’s cross.

Boos had surfaced along with chants of ‘Cowley sort it out’, before Scarlett drove into the box and saw his drive pushed away by Ashley-Maynard four minutes before the break.

So the stoppage-time leveller from Ogilvie arrived as a blessed leave to diffuse a bleak scenario developing.

It was Curtis’ corner which was met by Raggett and looped in by the defender to lift the tension at Fratton.

The triple change at the break spoke volumes of first-half events as the struggling Pigott, Scarlett and Curtis were hauled off for Bishop, Reeco Hackett and Michael Jacobs with the 4-4-2 formation ditched.

No number of substitutions or tactical changes can legislate for giving the ball away cheaply, however.

And so it proved, as Raggett gifted possession to Albie Morgan three minutes after the restart, allowing Fraser to excellent carve through Pompey’s defence and fire an angled left-footed effort past Griffiths.

The Blues couldn’t blame fortune not being a bedfellow, as they enjoyed a sizable slice of luck after 56 minutes. Fraser’s superb 20-yard free-kick looked in all the way until it cannoned back off the ball, ricocheted off Griffiths’ back and stopped dead on the line.

A melee started by a tussle between Hackett and Dobson gave supporters a glimpse of the desire and fighting spirit they were looking for from their side.

It proved no more than that as Pack’s frustration eventually led to a second yellow card for a foul on Morgan - and his second red card of the season against the Addicks.

From there, it looked more a case of damage limitation with the visitors looking more likely to extend their advantage.

The final body blow came in stoppage time as Owen Dale's own goal, after Dobson's drive had been parried by Griffiths summed things up.

What is clear is something is needed in the immediacy to stop this becoming a Pompey annus horribilis.