news-engine

It was a disappointing afternoon as Portsmouth suffered their third consecutive defeat at Ashton Gate for three years in a 2-1 defeat. Team News John Mousinho named an unchanged starting 11 to the side that defeated Lincoln City a week ago. Josh Murphy was unavailable so Harvey Blair took his place on the bench, new signing Iyad Mohamed wasn’t featured in the squad. Michael Skubala also named an unchanged starting 11 to the Bristol City side that drew 2-2 away to Birmingham City last week, Dominic Ballard’s stunner of a goal in that game wasn’t enough to get a place in the starting 11. First Half It was Bristol City who started the strongest of the two teams, maintaining possession and controlling the game early on. Their first chance on goal came after just three minutes. Yu Hirakawa’s cross was too heavy and went over the two Bristol City players in the box, Zak Swanson cheaply gave the ball away to George Tanner, the full back played it to Scott Twine, whose effort from outside of the box went over the top right corner of the goal. Pompey started to grow into the game for about 10-15 minutes, with half chances from Terry Devlin and Ryan Kavuma-McQueen but it was the robins who took the lead in the 31st minute. Joe Williams played a long pass out to the full back Tanner, he played it to Jason Knight, with loads of space in the middle, Knight played a delightful ball over the top out onto the wing Jed Wallace, the former Pompey winger, drove forward and played a low cross from the right hand side into Lorent Tolaj to fire his first time effort past Nicolas Schmid. Second Half Pompey made one change at half time as midfielder Rocco Shein was taken off for Ebou Adams. Pompey came out with more intensity in the second half, Adams made a great impact winning the ball back for Pompey, but Bristol City were very effective at crowding out Portsmouth’s attackers in the final third, making it difficult for them to create any clear cut-chances. Bristol City then made it 2-0 in the 56th minute for a set piece goal. The corner took about two minutes to take due to the referee, causing the Pompey players to switch off, The ball was finally played in by Rio Cardines and Knight got away from his man to have a free header to double their lead. Pompey fans did have something to cheer about as Rob Dickie’s foul on Marko Milovanovic won Pompey a penalty in the 95th minute. The Serbian calmly slotted it in the right side of the goal to get his first Pompey goal. The full time whistle blew concluding a disappointing afternoon for Pompey. Conceding from quick brake aways and set pieces seems to be the story of Pompey’s season so far and clearly highlights what the blues need to work on defensively.