Dull In Hull Once Again

Last updated : 25 October 2009 By Jim Bonner
Pompey could only take a point from Hull after what was a dire game of football with little quality shown from either side.

The events of the first half are barely worth mentioning as there weren't any, barring Tommy Smith's miss in the first minute after he ran clear of the Hull defence. 

Stuart Attewell constantly blew for niggly fouls which ruined any flow that the match threatened to produce, whilst neither goalkeeper had anything major to do.

Things got better in the second half but not by much. Pompey came close to scoring on a couple of occasions as we got some joy down Hull's left hand side and Boaz Myhill was forced into a couple of good saves from Aruna Dindane and a one-handed stop from Hassan Yebda.

The Hull 'keeper also rushed off his line and took out Dindane outside the box when he shaped to shoot, but Jamie O'Hara could only shoot over the bar and that was our last real chance.

David James only had one major thing to do all match and that was to dive in and force the ball away from Geovanni who would have had a free shot on goal if he didn't, but generally Hull were so poor that they made our defence look comfortable.

The home support left the KC Stadium discontent and wanting manager Phil Brown to leave whilst the Pompey fans were also very disappointed in the performance that was our worst for some time, and yet we still managed a draw.

I'm personally disappointed that our attacking players didn't do enough and our midfield constantly gave the ball away whilst I have no idea why Paul Hart took off Tommy Smith. He was possibly our best forward thinking player yesterday and yet the manager replaced him with Frederic Piquionne who had little impact on the game.

If there are any positives to take from this result then they are that we didn't get beat a terrible team, our defence didn't make many mistakes and we've kept our second clean away from home in a row.

Unfortunately, results have gone against us this weekend with Birmingham, Wigan and Bolton winning and with Wolves and West Ham earning comeback draws against opposition you'd expect them to lose to.

That means that Pompey are now five points adrift from safety and simply must beat Wigan next Saturday to retain any realistic hopes of surviving in the Premier League.

And the woe doesn't end there either, with Portsmouth withdrawing the statement on the official website claiming that the Saudi Arabian paper's interview with Ali Al-Faraj was false.

It seems like the interview with the respected paper, where Al-Faraj claims that Portsmouth is a short-term investment and that he knows nothing about football, was true. Though Al-Faraj has now re-assured the Pompey fans in an interview with The Mirror.

In addition to this, it looks like that two people who were dropped from the original Al-Faraj consortium are investing a £15 million loan against the club to yet pay off more debts.

It just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?

Pompey Player Ratings

David James: 6 - Barely anything to do.

Steve Finnan: 7 - Did all the right things and offered something going forward.

Marc Wilson: 6 - Solid against Hull's blunt attack.

Younes Kaboul: 6 - Comfortable.

Tal Ben-Haim: 6 - Didn't do anything wrong.

Aaron Mokoena: 5 - Poor passing.

Jamie O'Hara: 6 - Bright on occasion.

Hassan Yebda: 6 - Average performance yet might have scored.

Kevin-Prince Boateng: 6 - Not as influential as usual due to carrying an injury.

Tommy Smith: 6 - Bright until substituted.

Aruna Dindane: 5 - Still needs to find his sharpness.

Substitutes

Jamie Ashdown

Anthony Vanden Borre

Nadir Belhadj

Hayden Mullins

Kanu

Danny Webber

Frederic Piquionne (Smith 65): 5 - Didn't make an impact.