Les hva vår medlem Michael Pantling tenker og mener etter en måned uten seier.

Av: MICHAEL PANTLING

MENINGER: My impression of Saturday’s match was that generally Shrewsbury were the better side. However, I did not like their gamesmanship and they were well organised and competent rather than particularly skillful. The match officials did not have a good day and some of the decisions were disappointing to say the least – they were consistent in that they missed a blatant handball by Burgess in the second hall (well outside the box).

Our first half performance was good with Evans, Naismith and Hawkins working very well together in attack (but should have had much more support from Lowe). Naismith was all too frequently fouled.

Evans fully deserved to be our man of the match.

In the second half we needed to change and Pitman did get into the action when he came on. I would have preferred to have seen Kennedy come on. Ronan is clearly very skillful but a bit lightweight against a robust side such as Shrewsbury.

Lowe “went missing” for much of the match and May’s inexperience showed.

Our defence held up well and Thompson is clearly proving his worth, Donohoe was also ok.

We really missed a dominant experienced central defender.

Goal scoring is getting to be an issue.

Pompey har ikke gjort det bra mot topp 6-lagene

Pompey have not done well against the “top six” sides and we will have to perform much better at home as well as away if we are not to end up mid table.

It is impressive that we can sell so many tickets to Milton Keynes but we are unlikely to match the sales to Coventry fans (a very short distance between the clubs).

Our new owners are still saying the right things but other that the restoration of some of the ground capacity (and Jacket’s contract extension) there is little evidence of their input. We cannot expect any significant investment in playing staff in the short term and I would be very surprised if it happens this summer. The sums needed for a serious promotion challenge are too great at the moment – Wigan are doing so well because the still have retained much of their Championship squad and might even now be getting parachute payments from the Premier League. The trouble is that it won’t be any easier as there are potentially some big clubs going to be relegated next season.