Gaffer For A Day: Awful - the worst Portsmouth display I've seen in 25 years. Sheffield Wednesday deserved the win
Gaffer For A Day, Mark Harvey, aged 63 from Gosport, assesses Pompey’s 2-0 defeat to Sheffield Wednesday...
Go on, how bad was that?
That was awful, I cannot honestly remember when I have seen Pompey play so badly. It’s probably going back to the Tony Pulis days 25 years ago.
We never played that badly under Danny Cowley. We had a couple of bad games, but I don’t think we had it where almost everyone on the pitch put in a poor performance. Normally you get one or two which rise above it.
It was typical Pompey in some ways, 10 minutes in and loads applauded Sheffield Wednesday for what they are going through - and I think Killip was still applauding them when Barry Bannan took that free-kick!
Sheffield Wednesday definitely deserved the win.
You’ve mentioned Ben Killip, how did he fare?
He showed he’s a decent shot stopper and made a couple of really good saves, but he didn’t look comfortable when passing the ball out from the back.
To be fair to Sheffield Wednesday, they had a really strong press against us in the opening 25 minutes and every time our goalkeeper got the ball I was thinking “Where’s this going?”.
Killip made some cracking saves and kept the scoreline down to two - the one early on at his near post was a superb reflex save - but his distribution was poor. We have a bit of an issue with the goalkeeper.
Who stood out for you?
Luke Le Roux was my man of the match and he only played half of it! He was outstanding, very comfortable on the ball and wanted it.
He was very calm, wasn’t panicky and if you look at the stats for completed passes to Pompey players, he probably did more than anybody else in the game. The rest of them seemed to pass to the wrong people.
For me, Le Roux is a shoe in to start next week. From his cameos, he has got better and better - with Saturday the best one of the season.
John Swift has put in some great performances, but Sheffield Wednesday wasn’t one of them. Compare him to what he did against Southampton, when he was immense.
What are your thoughts on Florian Bianchini’s return to the side?
We never gave him the ball in the first half and, based on how he was in the second half, I wasn’t surprised.
On a couple of occasions since he’s been here, he’s looked quite dangerous, but he is a little too lightweight and loses it too easily. He’s not physically strong enough.
He has some talent, we’ve seen that. Saturday was an opportunity, he had the chance with Josh Murphy being out injured. He could have put a performance on the board, but didn’t.
I don’t want it to be another Sammy Silvera because he put in a couple of half-decent cameo roles and then faded away. The crowd got onto his back after that.
Bianchini is a Pompey player, we have to get behind him - but he didn't look a decent player against Sheffield Wednesday.
Ben Killip - 4
Zak Swanson - 5 (Josh Knight - 5)
Regan Poole - 6
Conor Shaughnessy - 5 (Hayden Matthews - 5)
Connor Ogilvie - 5
John Swift - 2 (Luke Le Roux - 6)
Andre Dozzell - 5
Adrian Segecic - 3
Conor Chaplin - 4
Florian Bianchini - 2
Colby Bishop - 4