QPR 6 Portsmouth 1: Neil Allen's verdict - Fratton faithful patience finally snaps as relegation thunderbolt strikes
The Blues are languishing 21st in the Championship after a fifth defeat in six matches
A distraught Ebou Adams was the final Pompey player to depart the pitch, holding up his hands apologetically before pulling his shirt over his face to mask tears.
With QPR pair Jake Clarke-Salter and Isaac Hayden coming across to console the midfielder, it was a heart-breaking end to the worst day of a Blues season which is rapidly unravelling.
The extent of an emotional Adams’ knee injury is not yet clear, albeit the sight of Conor Chaplin and Jacob Brown comforting him at length moments after the final whistle suggests the worst should be feared.
What is abundantly certain, though, is John Mousinho’s men produced a dreadful display which screamed relegation certainties.
And, most concerning of all, a large bulk of those 1,760 supporters present at Loftus Road no longer hold the belief that a return to League One can be avoided, not this time. Saturday’s thunderbolt of realisation has crippled the hope of many.
There are eight matches remaining, of course, including crucial Fratton Park fixtures against fellow strugglers Oxford United and Leicester City. Ridiculously, one point from six games hasn’t even plunged them into the drop zone. The fight isn’t yet over.
The perfect storm
However, Saturday represented the perfect storm. An occasion when injuries, poor recruitment, transfer gambles, cheap signings, ownership issues and managerial mistakes collided as Pompey spectacularly imploded.
When the admirably-patient travelling Fratton faithful snap and chant ‘You’re not fit to wear the shirt’ and ‘We’re going down with the Wednesday’ after just 30 minutes, this is indeed, uncharted, and extremely dangerous, territory.
In October 2024, irrespective of five goals conceded in 11 minutes during a 6-1 humiliation at Stoke, the away support applauded Mousinho’s team off at the bet365 Stadium and sang of their eternal love for Pompey.
On Saturday, there was no such goodwill afforded the players - and Mousinho for that matter - amid a soul-crushing defeat. The fans simply had enough.
This is the consequence of two ineffective transfer windows overseen by sporting director Rich Hughes and head of recruitment Brad Wall, with Jacob Brown, Gustavo Caballero and Milli Alli the latest new recruits desperately struggling. All of which are loans.
And still Pompey are a striker short, an error bafflingly not addressed in January. They headed into that pivotal window as the second-lowest scorers in the Championship. With 16 goals from 15 games since, they are now the third-lowest. Clearly it hasn’t been rectified.
Eisner’s cautious financial backing
Chairman Michael Eisner’s infuriatingly cautious financial backing for Hughes and Co on the pitch continues to be felt. Now, more than ever before, that short-sighted policy is threatening to deprive Pompey of their hard-earned Championship status.
Tellingly, ‘We want Eisner out’ was distinctly audible from Blues followers inside the stadium, heard at least once on brief occasions in each half.
And Mousinho himself, the man hero worshipped for so long, is also appearing fallible. In the last month, there was the mistake of playing Brown as a number 10 against Swansea, then the failure of the experiment of asking his wingers to switch flanks against Derby.
At Loftus Road, he curiously decided on a central midfield pairing of John Swift and Marlon Pack, a combined age of 65, while Adams was pressed into the number 10 role.
Swift’s finest performances in a Blues shirt has been in the 10, a position the club are well stacked in anyway. Yet instead, bewilderingly, Mousinho opted on Adams, one of their most influential performers and the heartbeat of the team.
As it turned out, Swift was entirely at fault for the opening goal on seven minutes when he miscontrolled the ball, then threw himself into a slide to keep it in play, only to divert it to Richard Kone. Moments later, Paul Smyth had put QPR 1-0 up.
By the 28th minute, QPR had raced into a 3-0 lead, having registered with their only three shots on target. Incidentally, Nicolas Schmid should have done far better with the second, Rayan Kolli’s 30-yard low shot.
Many, many more leaks have sprung
Solid, promising Pompey performances of late had failed to earn points on account of a crucial lack of quality in the final third. On Saturday, suddenly many, many more leaks had sprung.
Scrambling around for potential saviours on the horizon, only Andre Dozzell and Keshi Anderson remain, with both expected to return from injury for the trip to Norwich.
Perhaps they will be the next Andres D’Alessandro and Pedro Mendes, perhaps not. How Pompey require a hero to save them over the next eight games - and there don’t appear to be many candidates around.
Particularly should Ebou Adams’ absence prove lengthy. And then we’ll all be inconsolable.
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