First things first I have to admit that these post-match thoughts are based purely on the telly; what with travelling to Sunderland later in the month the effort and the cost of two 700 mile trips in one month I decided to give this one a miss and resort to watching the game in a pub - so sadly I can't really give the best of reflections on the match as a whole, only what was caught on the camera.
A few brief thoughts then;
- Gary O'Neil had what was possibly his best ever game in a Portsmouth shirt, aside from his part in the demolition of Leeds a couple of years ago. Loving the Terry Butcher blood stained head thing he had going on; really summed up the battling spirit of the side - and he also did enough to get into the Sky Sports Team Of The Week. But not enough for The News Of The World, whose football experts gave him 4/10.
- Full marks to Viafara; here we have a lad who played for his country in the early hours of Thursday morning and yet was still tracking back like a demon in the final twenty minutes, shoring things up and putting in some crucial tackles. Hopefully after his recent lack of action after the birth of his first child we can finally see him back in the squad and building on a solid start to the season.
- It was obvious that Yakubu was going to get on the score sheet, but as with so many of his goals for us it's still a bit confusing as to how he managed it. Quite why Skopelitis was chosen to mark their biggest threat is confusing enough, almost as much as his piss-poor attempt to try and get at the ball. Once again question marks over the positioning of Jamie "Teflon" Ashdown, although he redeemed himself with a good save later in the game.
- Whilst the midfield and defence were again pretty solid, there will still be question marks over the strikers. Hopefully once they all get back from injury we should have a better chance but at present Silva looks a touch off the pace (even if jet lag will have come into play) whilst Todorov - although playing a massive part in setting up the first goal - didn't look particularly near scoring at any point afterwards. Still, hopefully with a couple more reserve games and some more match action he can return to being the free-scoring goalscoring mammoth machine that we all know and love.
- Aah, the old Laurent Robert question. After not really doing anything yesterday and then storming off in a sulk question marks have started to be raised about his input into the team. Personally (and I'm not his biggest fan by any stretch of the imagination), I think it's hard to drop him just because he can create things so easily. A stat I've often repeated is that he's been involved in four of our six goals this season, a record that anyone should be proud of. You've got to accept the sulks and the tantrums - we knew we'd be getting that before he turned up - and yeah, sometimes he's not going to turn up and strop about and throw his toys out of the pram. But if he can do that for eighty-nine minutes and still chuck in a decent corner which leads to a goal at some point, and we all know he has that potential, then it's well worth keeping him in the side.
- One bonus - shallow though it is - is that it was nice to see us put in a good performance on national telly and get a few words of praise from the presenters, just for once. Hopefully the lads on "Soccer Saturday" (yes I'm talking to you Charlie Nicholas) who predicted "home banker" across the board will be digging into a nice slice of humble pie alongside their Sunday roast. Although one minor correct for Gordon McQueen; "Ports-muff", rather than "Ports-mouth".
- Over the years I have seen teams cynically and pathetically time waste again and again, and frequently the referee takes the easy option and gives a couple of minutes added on at the end anyway. Why is it that we - after mild time wasting - get an extra five minutes slapped on, and end up playing nearer six?
In conclusion then - another decent performance and we're still looking ok in the lower reaches of mid-table, but with the addition of a goalscorer then who knows.