Gaffer For A Day: Southampton supporters and players were lacklustre and not up for it. Portsmouth drowned them out
Gaffer For A Day, Brooke Smedley, aged 28 from Copnor, assesses Pompey’s goalless draw with Southampton...
How did Pompey perform?
There’s only one team which can come out of that performance and say they were happy with that match - and it has to be Pompey.
We were on the front foot from the off, grabbing the game by the scruff of the neck. Then Pompey were a bit leggy for 10-15 minutes at the start of the second half before settling back into it.
You would want a win, but I will take the draw given the circumstances. Southampton have multi-million pound players, but we absolutely held our own. For 70 per cent of the game, we looked the better team.
Pompey were also the only team which looked up for it. The Southampton players don’t understand what this game means to them, that’s why they had Matt Le Tissier and Franny Benali going into the training ground throughout the week to drum it into them.
What did you make of the St Mary’s atmosphere?
The blue side was as we always hoped it would be. The red side was lacklustre, especially given they were hosting their first derby game for 13-and-a-half years and Will Still was trying to drum up the atmosphere in the build up.
You know exactly how it will be when they come down to our place and Fratton Park will create an atmosphere. Sunday was scraping the barrel in comparison.
Maybe it’s just because we are as passionate as we are as a football club, but we went there and drowned them out. Southampton just didn’t seem up for it.
Who stood out for you?
You’re looking between Zak Swanson, Andre Dozzell and Josh Murphy as man of the match - but Swanson is the stand out for me.
He is developing a reputation as a big-game player. He seems to always perform in the matches we need him to and, on Sunday, was exceptional, both defensively and on the attack.
There were a lot of doubts about him coming back in at right-back, but Swanson has cemented his place there for the foreseeable. I don’t see a world now where anyone can get over him, he has risen to the top as the best of the bunch.
I have always been a fan of his offensively, but he has not been as good as Jordan Williams defensively. That has definitely improved this season.
How did you find the bubble buses?
It was exactly as Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary would have wanted it. It was quite well run, easy enough getting up there and getting off, although a bit frustrating arriving at St Mary’s two-and-a-half hours before kick-off.
There was the odd person standing by junctions giving hand signals, a couple of Pompey fans and flags on bridges too, but as you went into Southampton city centre there was no-one around trying to make an atmosphere.
When we got to the ground, they put us through two different cordons, and chucked us into a massive segregated area outside the stadium.
I never saw any trouble. It was probably about 500 yards before you could get to a position where you would be even near an opposition fan.
Nicolas Schmid - 6 (Ben Killip 6)
Zak Swanson - 8
Regan Poole - 7
Conor Shaughnessy - 7
Connor Ogilvie - 6 (Jordan Williams - 6)
Andre Dozzell - 7
John Swift - 7
Adrian Segecic - 6
Conor Chaplin - 7
Josh Murphy - 7
Colby Bishop 6