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A full-on bottom of the table clash as Portsmouth come to town - and the fans witnessed what may have been the worst Premier League game ever. Ugly. Report by Steve Weatherill. |
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O crikey, this was utterly, dismally, transcendently awful. Myhill No Bullard - not even on the bench. How many minutes of football are we going to get for our five million quid (plus wages)? No Altidore - not even on the bench. No Turner. Sob. Gardner fit, apparently, and skipper. Grey but mild afternoon, and off we go, attacking the North Stand. On 3 Geovanni lines up a free-kick in pretty much the same position from which he scored so magnificently in the win at White Hart Lane - twelve months ago, it feels like twelve years. The ball swivelled on its trajectory with menace, flew like a sparrow hawk low and viciously through the air and hurtled unstoppably into the top corner of the net. Well, it did twelve months ago. Yesterday it flubbered and blubbered and drifted harmlessly high into the puzzled Autumnal air. On 11 we win a free-kick wide on the right. Hunt knocks it into the box where Geo has slipped his marker and, with the Portsmouth defence exposed, he needs only a slight connection to beat David James. But under no pressure our man can't connect. That, it turns out, is our best opportunity of a wretched afternoon. We are slightly the better side in the early stages, but these are two scared teams. It's poor football. Nothing happens for a while. 'Largely formless' was the common label of choice when tiger_chat toured the football wastelands that occupied us during the grisly Dolan and Hateley years, but it's back with a mocking intensity right now. Well, skip the 'largely'. It's formless, plain and simple. On 29 Tommy Smith, for them, has a sight of goal but lacks finesse and is closed down. No one has a shred of self-confidence. At this point it was announced that Mr Ali Al-Nasri was putting the finishing touches to a consortium of newsagents in the Gosport area eager to buy Portsmouth FC, and willing to invest 'a bag of old threepennny bits, and maybe some left over old copies of Bunty'. Doughty chief executive Peter Storrie pronounced himself 'optimistic about the future of the club'. Meanwhile David James was seen leaning on his goalpost, furiously texting his agent: 'Get me OUT of here, surely Villa or Spurs or someone like that would be interested in me?' The football has been thoroughly incompetent, and it's half-time now, after 45 of the thinnest minutes I've watched in a long while. So to the second half and the skies lighten, as shafts of sunshine dance across the western sky. Were we in a Thomas Hardy novel this would be a typically tired metaphor for an upturn in our heroes' fate, but though football (well, Hull City football, at least) shares doom-laden inevitability with the novels of Wessex, it isn't so tritely predictable in its plotting. No, indeed. You thought the first half was bad? The second's going to be worse. Which, one might wearily suppose, would be a signal that Dean Marney is about to leap into the narrative. Yes. That's right. On 46 a corner is knocked out to Marney, and he has the luxury of a little bit of time and space to set himself for a shot. I suspect the whole stadium knows what's about to happen. Marney himself knows what's going to happen. The ball is blootered miles over the bar. They must practise this sort of stuff, I suppose - shooting, I mean, not specifically shooting over the bar. But Marney doesn't improve. He gets worse. Dean the Obscure. At this point it was announced that Mr Suleiman Mehgadi was putting the finishing touches to a consortium of greengrocers on Hayling Island eager to buy Portsmouth FC, and willing to invest 'a nice bag of sprouts with a touch of early frost on them and a bunch of lovely glossy coriander'. Enthusiastic chief executive Peter Storrie pronounced himself 'optimistic about the future of the club'. Meanwhile David James was seen leaning on his goalpost, furiously texting his agent: 'Get me OUT of here, surely QPR or Watford or someone like that would be interested in me?' On 60 Myhill stops a shot that, glory be, appears to be on target, but from the rebound another effort struck by Dindane is conveniently blocked by one of his teammates in blue (Kaboul, I think). Nope, there aren't going to be any goals in this game. On 63 Yebda eludes what passes for our offside trap (a creaky, rusting saw-toothed device last seen catching poachers near Brandesburton in the mid eighteenth century) but, goal gaping, he can only tentatively toe-end the ball, and Myhill saves easily. Portsmouth will think this little spell of pressure offered the best chance of a goal in this match. And they'd be right. They might also think they deserved a win off the back of it. And they'd be wrong. Neither side deserved one point, let alone three, from this shockingly limp affair. Still, Portsmouth were marginally the better of two awful sides. We didn't even manage a proper shot on target. We didn't even manage a proper shot close to the target. The question of how long we must think back to recall a City performance quite as wretched as this is easily answered: five days. At Fulham on Monday we were similarly unable to muster a single shot on target. But Fulham were decent and at times slick on the ball, whereas Portsmouth were almost as tamely glum as we were. More difficult is trying to work out when not one but both teams offered up a poverty-stricken ninety minutes to match yesterday's. I have researched this. 0-0 at Southampton in November 2006 was a shockingly shapeless affair. Yesterday was about as bad. But aren't we nowadays meant to be in the Best League In The World? Time for some subs. Barmby for Mendy. Garcia for Hunt, and the Australian is wearing some kind of odd black bodysuit under his kit. Fashion tips, tiger_chat is the place to be. Err, the football is unremittingly atrocious by now. On 86 Boaz spills the ball near the edge of his box, and then scythes down one of theirs as he capers outside the box on a rescue mission. It's a yellow, but there are enough defenders close by for red to be out of the question. Dawson intelligently underlines that point to the referee by dashing back to position himself as last man hard on the goal-line as the card is fished for. Twenty yards from goal and central, Pompey have a real chance to pinch the three points from this free-kick. O'Hara punts it high and wide. At this point it was announced that Mr Mohammad Shazad, chair of the Fareham and District launderette owners' trade association, had, when asked if it was true that he was planning to invest a few packets of Daz in Portsmouth FC, collapsed into hysterical giggles and said 'frankly I’d be better off with Waterlooville and Havant FC than that soap opera down at Fratton Park'. Wan chief executive Peter Storrie pronounced himself 'ready to top myself, to be honest' while David James was seen blubbering uncontrollably while leaning on his goalpost, sobbing 'Bournemouth? Torquay? Peacehaven and Telscombe? HELP!' Then, finally, with two whole minutes remaining, Ghilas replaces Marney, who exits far from the maddened crowd. One on too late, one off too late. Inexplicable stuff. There are three added minutes, during which Dawson gives the ball away grotesquely, resulting in a corner. Myhill pouches it. The game's over, we can go home. Portsmouth? Great club, great fans. Like Millwall and in the past, but not anymore, West Ham, Pompey are a tough honest working-class club that belongs spiritually in the game's Northern heartlands, though currently tragically locked in an ill-fitting soft Southern body. From John Milkins to Alan Knight, Albert McCann to Bobby Doyle, they all deserve so much better than the shambles they've become. But if we have any hope of staying up this season it surely has to involve Portsmouth being one of the three teams finishing below us. On yesterday's evidence they just might. But we still need to find two more. Burnley might be another one, and they're next. |
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HULL CITY (4-4-1-1): Myhill; McShane, Zayatte, Gardner, Dawson; Mendy, Olofinjana, Marney, Hunt; Geovanni; Vennegoor of Hesselink. Subs: Barmby (for Mendy, 71), Garcia (for Hunt, 74), Ghilas (for Marney, 89), Kilbane, Atkinson, Mouyokolo, Duke. Goals: None Booked: Marney, Myhill Sent Off: None
PORTSMOUTH: James, Finnan, Ben-Haim, Kaboul, Mokoena, Boateng, O'Hara, Wilson, Yebda, Smith, Dindane. Subs: Piquionne (for Smith, 65), Mullins, Kanu, Vanden Borre, Belhadj, Ashdown, Webber. Goals: None Booked: Mokoena Sent Off: None
REFEREE: S Attwell ATTENDANCE: 23,720 |
Last revised: October 25, 2009