Som forventet endte det uavgjort mellom Lincoln og Pompey. Dermed økte avstanden til lagene i toppen ytterligere for Colby Bishop og Pompey.
Sesongen er 0ver. Det har flere supportere konkludert med for flere uker siden, og etter lørdagens uavgjorte kamp mot Lincoln er det vanskelig å si seg uenig. Pompey har 26 poeng opp til direkte opprykk og 14 poeng opp til 6. plassen som gir play-off. Pompey er ute av alle cupene.
De mest pessimistiske så en periode ned til nedrykksplassene og var redde for nedrykk, men Pompey har 13 poeng ned til nedrykk (tross alt nærmere nedrykk enn play-off) og har kamper til gode.
Mot Lincoln hadde Pompey store sjanser til å avgjøre kampen, men det endte 0-0. Det var to tapte poeng som Pompey ikke har råd til ettersom avstanden allerede var stor.
Dette var for øvrig Lincolns 12. uavgjorte kamp på hjemmebane i League One denne sesongen.
Lenke til de offisielle sidene sin kamprapport
Midtstopper Sean Raggets kommentarer til kampen
«All the boys are really disappointed and that tells a story because I thought we’d done well enough to win the game. We had some good chances and it was just unfortunate that we couldn’t put any of them away, but you have those days.
We kept going right to he very end and probably created some of our best opportunities in the closing stages. That happened on Tuesday night and we got the winner, so it shows the spirit we’ve got in this squad. We never give up.
There are some good finishers at this club and so I was backing us right until the end to get that goal, but it didn’t happen. That’s two clean sheets in a row and we can definitely take the positives from that – we were solid and limited Lincoln.
They couldn’t really play through us much at all and were looking for the long ball. That’s because of how we defended from the front. Everyone’s hurting because we wanted to win, but we’ll take the positives from the game, while also looking at the negatives and how we can improve.”
Hovedtrener John Mousinhos kommentarer til kampen
«It feels like two points that have slipped away and there’s a lot of disappointment in the dressing room. That’s natural when you finish the game like we did and we were on top in the second half, but couldn’t quite put those chances away.
We had the opportunity to end Lincoln’s unbeaten home record and Colby knows he should be scoring – I don’t need to tell him that – while it was an excellent save to deny Ronan.
We weren’t organised enough at the start and Jack Diamond was causing some problems, but once we sorted that out, we were largely comfortable. The big positive is that we’re so disappointed not to win because so many teams will come here and be delighted with a 0-0, but we’re not.
That shows the ambition of the players in our dressing room and where they want to go, while there were plenty of good performances to provide positives to take into next week.”
Sincil Bank Stadium, League One, 18. februar 2023:
Lincoln City– Portsmouth 0-0
Pompey (4-3-3): Macey; Rafferty (Bernard 82), Raggett (c), Towler, Ogilvie; Lane (Curtis 59), Morrell, Tunnicliffe; Dale (Pigott 59), Bishop, Hackett (Scarlett 73)
Ubenyttede reserver: Oluwayemi, Thompson, Jacobs
Gule kort: Morrell, Rafferty, Hackett og Pigott
Tilskuere: 9,906 (1,313 Pompey fans)
Hovedtrener John Mousinho.