Portsmouth 0 Sheffield Wednesday 2: Neil Allen's verdict - Shocking Blues far too charitable to distressed Owls
Pompey’s dreadful Fratton Park performance allowed the Owls to register their first Championship win of the season
The Fratton family demonstrated generosity of spirit towards distressed Sheffield Wednesday - it’s just unfortunate John Mousinho’s players were also so benevolent.
It was meant to be a moment of touching solidarity, those with long memories of battling against unsuitable owners and their unspeakable actions standing side-by-side with another club gasping for air.
Not all approved, of course, but plenty of those with Blues persuasion present inside Fratton Park opted to recognise the Owls’ 10th-minute protest against Dejphon Chansiri with charitable applause and an accompanying nod of respect.
It was a touching gesture from much of the home support, delving deep into their hearts to deliver considerably more sympathy towards the Owls than the Pompey pariahs ever received from the football fraternity during their darkest days.
Still, this was common ground, the South Yorkshire club personifying a kindred spirit, refusing to accept the fate cast upon them by their owner. Few fans dare to fight back. The Blues did - and now so are the blue and whites.
‘We’ll never forget your fans’ understanding of our predicament. Class act,’ the Sheffield Wednesday Supporters’ Trust posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Saturday evening.
Grateful for Pompey faithful’s strong backing during Saturday’s proceedings, while also readily accepting the bonus - and entirely surprising - gift of a first league victory of a wretched season.
‘The worst home Championship performance by a long way’
When interviewed by BBC Radio Solent afterwards, John Mousinho described it as his side’s worst Championship performance at Fratton Park under him ‘by a long way’. In truth, it's likely you would need to delve considerably further into the past to find an equal.
Bad performances are commonplace in football, there is no immunity, yet rarely does a group individually also perform so abjectly in a match. Almost to a man, what Pompey served up on Saturday was absolutely woeful.
Perhaps only Zak Swanson could escape criticism in the opening 45 minutes, the archetypal best of a very bad bunch, only for that lone light to be extinguished when he failed to reappear after the break having felt unwell.
Nonetheless, barely any of his team-mates who started the match can be excused for such a disgusting display in which they were comprehensively outplayed by a crisis club previously clutching one point from their opening five league games.
To rub salt into the gaping wounds, the applause signalling the home supporters’ acknowledgement towards their counterparts’ ongoing survival fight had barely died down before the Owls’ opener arrived.
The travelling Wednesday fans could be forgiven for viewing it as wonderfully romantic, Barry Bannan’s free-kick impeccably timed to coincide with the latest defiant 10th-minute battle cry in the direction of the tone-deaf Chansiri.
For the Fratton faithful, though, it was a startling wake-up call to alert them that the wounded beast in their presence doesn’t always wear a muzzle. It’s just a shame the players criminally failed to also recognise the danger during the entire 90 minutes.
An angry Mousinho later accused his men of ‘complacency’, rightly drawing a startling contrast with the heartening goalless draw at St Mary’s just seven days earlier.
Of those which lined up at Southampton, only injured pair Nico Schmid and Josh Murphy were no longer present in the starting XI against Sheffield Wednesday, yet the team - and performance - was unrecognisable.
Appalling individual displays
This wasn’t merely the odd player producing significantly below the required standards, bafflingly it was the vast majority of them. As a consequence, collectively it was an appalling showing from the first minute.
John Swift plunged from his best Pompey outing yet at Southampton to such a shocking display against the Owls that he was rightly hauled off at half-time, with his passing wildly off radar and benefiting the opposition.
As for Florian Bianchini, recalled to the left wing following an ankle injury to Josh Murphy, he was barely given the ball in the opening 45 minutes, yet after the break was used as the chief attacking outlet, with abysmal results.
On almost every occasion he hideously overhit his left-wing cross beyond the far post and, frustratingly, grew worse as the game wore on. Unfortunately, due to injury to so many other wingers at present, he was unable to be dragged off so continued his painful performance.
The duo were not alone. Adrian Segecic appears a shadow of himself now shifted to the right wing, while Conor Chaplin simply couldn’t do anything right on his second Fratton Park debut.
Massive Shaughnessy set-back
And to compound matters, on 50 minutes a ball down the line after a Pompey attack broke down with Bianchini inside the opposition box was being comfortably dealt with by Conor Shaughnessy. Only for the defender to suffer a highly visible hamstring tear and collapse to the floor.
George Brown capitalised and, no longer with any Blues player around him, calmly curled a finish past the exposed Ben Killip to make it an unassailable 2-0 advantage.
It was a curiously mixed game for Killip, having started in place of the injured Schmid. He will be criticised for Bannan’s free-kick goal and his kicking was erratic, yet he did make a number of excellent saves to keep the scoreline down.
Still, Sheffield Wednesday’s excellent fans visited Fratton Park keen to raise awareness of their plight. They never anticipated an entire football team digging deep to deliver charitable hand outs.