Steve Morison slams sloppy Cardiff after ‘frustrating’ Carabao Cup defeat to Portsmouth

The Bluebirds boss was left far from impressed following the 3-0 defeat as he labelled his men’s lack of finishing ability and defensive errors as the main reasons behind the loss.

It came as a shock no least for the City head coach, who’s outfit asserted their Championship dominance early on and were unlucky not to go ahead when Mark Harris’ goal was judged to be offside after 12 minutes.

Despite having their backs against the wall for most of the first period, Danny Cowley’s men came out a rejuvenated side when Joe Pigott opened his Pompey account after the break.

A penalty from Ronan Curtis and a Colby Bishop header from a corner sealed the victory for the Blues, much to the frustration of the Cardiff boss.

Morison admitted his side were below-par as they exited the Carabao Cup at the first hurdle.

He told the official Cardiff City website: ‘Nobody likes to lose a game of football.

‘We had numerous opportunities - they had a third of what we had, and scored three of them. Every goal could be preventable. It’s frustrating on the whole.

‘Arguably, the turning point was making the two subs in the 50th minute. Every change we made was pre-planned, we knew what we were going to do.

‘We wanted to get Rubin Colwill on and get him minutes. We thought it was more beneficial to put Rubin in this game than in the U21’s this afternoon.

‘He’s got 40 minutes under his belt. But it was a really frustrating one, because from the 50th minute onwards, we were really poor.’

Tuesday night’s defeat denied Cardiff an instant response to their 2-1 loss against Reading in the Championship on Saturday.

And Morison admitted his side weren’t good enough but understands their’s still a lot to learn.

He continued: ‘No different to Saturday, we were good for parts but not good enough, and lacked that intensity.

‘We have to learn from it. We went through Saturday’s game on Monday morning, because you have to see it, positive and negative. We’ll do that again this week with the same process.’