Defensive disaster class, January fix and Coventry City keeper question looms larger than ever
Given where Portsmouth are in the league, this has to go down as one of the worst Coventry City performances in a long while. They were pretty poor at Elland Road earlier in the season but that was against a slick Leeds side who are favourites for promotion.
That’s no disrespect to Pompey, but it’s inevitable that teams that have just stepped up to the Championship are going to struggle to a certain degree to match the quality of more established second tier teams. But what they may lack in individual talent and ability, they often more than make up for with character.
And that was a quality that was desperately lacking from the Sky Blues on Saturday lunchtime, along with the basics of the game. Here we look at some of the big talking points and dissect a truly dismal display.
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Recruitment oversight
Pompey are reminiscent of City in their first season up - full of fight, determination and aggression that comes from a side balanced with experience and leaders, the likes of 33-year-old centre-half Marlon Pack and 35-year-old midfielder Matt Ritchie. It’s been a missing ingredient for the Sky Blues ever since Kyle McFadzean left this time last year, and, for whatever reason, hasn’t been replaced.
That has to go down as an oversight on the club’s part. Frank Lampard, like Mark Robins before him, refused to use youth and lack of experience as an excuse, but the fact remains the team is crying out for a hard man centre-back who takes no prisoners, leads by example and sets the tone for aggressive displays. First and foremost you have to compete, with every player striving to win their individual battles, but at Fratton Park those qualities were sadly lacking.
Game plan out the window
City’s game plan couldn’t be faulted. Lampard had spoken in his pre-match press conference about using the vocal home crowd against their own side by getting at Pompey early and dictating the game, and that’s exactly when they did when they scored from their first attack. Coventry countered quickly against a really poor looking home defence who played a high line and were all over the place, almost effortlessly opened up by Ephron Mason-Clark who beat his man to put the ball in for Norman Bassette to tap home at the far post.
The Belgian then went clean through with just the keeper to beat minutes after the restart, only to be denied a second by an out-stretched boot from the keeper when he looked favourite to score and put the Sky Blues in cruise control. The fact that he didn’t convert what was a gilt-edged opportunity soon came back to haunt City when Pompey pulled level shortly after.
Bassette caused all manner of problems with his running in behind and work in the box, but he is still very much a raw talent learning his trade. Clean through, it’s easy to say with hindsight that he should have opted to take another touch before shooting or gone round the keeper rather than try to bend it past him, hitting it far to close to allow him to have a chance of making the save.
Defensive disaster class
It wasn’t Bassette’s wasted opportunity that lost City the game, however, it was rank bad defending, with the entire back four culpable on a desperately poor day for those whose main job is to keep the ball out of the net. We’ll come to the goalkeeper’s part shortly, but for the first Portsmouth goal, Milan van Ewijk – who had a decent case for a foul after being shoved – failed to deal with the aggressive Colby Bishop who fed Callum Lang for a shot that went through Jay Dasilva’s legs to beat Brad Collins all too easily at his near post. The second saw dreadful positioning from Dasilva, who allowed the ball to be played over the top of him to Lang on the left, and then allowed the forward to hold him off before lashing his angled shot into the far top corner to give the home side the lead going into the break.
The third then killed the game, coming just three minutes into the second half when City’s marking was dreadful to defend a corner, which fell to Lang who rose disappointingly unchallenged, with Bobby Thomas the nearest defender, and Collins in no-man’s land.
The fourth then saw Sakamoto and Van Ewijk fail to cut out the cross to Bishop, whose effort was denied by a brilliant reaction save which looped up in the air. But instead of catching it, Collins panicked and clawed it away, straight into the path of Lang to steer home with Luis Binks static, the centre-half having failed to react and read the potential danger.
Keeper question looms larger than ever
City’s goalkeeping problems have been an issue all season – the fact that all three senior stoppers have been used so far tells its own story. We’ve gone from too young and inexperienced to too inconsistent, but the common denominator that stands out is not having a dominant enough presence to command the box.
It’s hard not to feel a bit sorry for Collins, who pulled off two outstanding and crucial saves to keep City in the game against Hull last week, the hope being that he would grow in stature and confidence at Fratton Park where he could be seen thumping his own head in frustration after letting the ball go under him for the first. But the point is, he would never have been in that situation had he caught the corner into the box instead of punching it away and relying on his defenders to clear. Catching crosses appears to be a dying art which is crazy, particularly when one considers that nine times out of ten referees will blow for a foul in the keeper’s favour if he’s impeded in any way in the process.
There wasn’t a great deal he could have done about the second but, again, for the third it was another corner during which he found himself in no-man’s land, having opted to initially stand his ground and then go, but far too late to get to the danger.
The question now is, will Lampard make a change for Boxing Day and, if so, does he go with the experienced Ben Wilson who has only just returned to training and still not 100 percent, or stick Oliver Dovin back in?
January window fix
Lampard admitted that out of his first five games in charge, this was the one in which he learned the most from his players. Going back to that lack of experience and leadership in an unforgiving league, there’s a strong argument for the club to draft in a commanding keeper in January; someone who has been around the block a bit but who can instil some much-need confidence at the back. The head coach admitted on Friday that he has been identifying areas of his team that might benefit from strengthening in the mid-term transfer window, and Saturday’s game will also have brought his defensive frailties sharply into focus.
