| AFC Bournemouth 0 Portsmouth 1 |
There may be an ever so small increase of optimism in Portsmouth tonight after Pompey avoided another pre-season humiliation courtesy of a 1-0 win over Bournemouth.
With so many players playing out-of-position (Hayden Mullins at centre back for example), it's no surprise that the hosts had the better of the play throught the match as Pompey failed to produce any kind of possession football.
Despite Bournemouth's better play, they couldn't find a way through the Pompey defence in the first half which remained goalless.
Bret Pittman came close to scoring a couple of times during the second half whilst Michael Brown could easily have been shown a red card for a kick to the face of Jason Pearce after a nasty incident between the pair.
Against the run of the play, Marvin Bartley pulled back Marlon Pack in the box and Marc Wilson dispatched the resulting penalty kick. The Irishman also headed in a second goal late on which was ruled out for a supposed foul.
One piece of interesting news coming from The Quay tonight was that Andrew Andronikou was looking to sell Kevin-Prince Boateng to Olympiakos for cash and Matt Derbyshire, the former Blackburn striker.
That would be excellent news if it happens, but it seems too good to be true. Derbyshire is good enough to play in the Premier League, so why he'd want to come to a team supposedly the bookmakers' third favourites to go down?
As for the match as a whole, the general consensus seems to be that if Pompey perform in the Championship as they did tonight, then those odds from the bookies will be fully justified.
Pompey's final friendly is, of course, Linvoy's testimonial against Fulham. I was very disappointed to hear that only 2,715 tickets had been sold for the game so far.
I hope that most people will do what I am doing and simply pay on the gate. There may be a lot of ill feeling surrounding the club but if anyone deserves our support then it's Linvoy. It's for charity too, so please go to the game if you can.
After all, unless Richard Hughes stays at the club for another two years then the next testimonial will be a long, long time coming. Primus gave his all in every game he played for Pompey, so he deserves a good turnout for the last time he'll play in a royal blue shirt. |
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