Portsmouth 1 Charlton Athletic 2
What a performance. A game of two halves from the Addicks. The first of quick movement, passing and attacking threat, the 2nd knee deep in the trenches repelling wave after wave of attack.
Last season’s victory at Fratton Park was one of the season’s best memories, and once again in front of a noisy Addicks’ support we beat the league leaders, handing them only their second deafeat of the season, following an immense display in equal measures of ability and backbone.
Bowyer and Jacko got the tactics spot on tonight as we beefed up the defence and in the 1st half kept the ball well and used the pace of Grant and guile of Taylor really well.
Grant put us ahead converting at the back post a low Taylor cross. Unfortunately Grant was struggling with a hamstring injury just before he scored and had to be replaced by Ajose.
Ajose has not had the best of times with us, but his memories of Fratton Park in a Charlton shirt will be long. George Lapslie, a Bowyer mini-me, did great work out wide and got a cross over that Taylor flicked on for Ajose to finish confidently.
A special mention to George Lapslie. He came of age tonight, and Krystian Bielik was excellent as well before going off bloodied and bruised.
As expected Pompey came flying at us in the 2nd half and my heart was in my mouth on many occasions as I listened to the excellent commentary. We were putting everything on the line. Blocking, clearing, tackling with Steer imperious behind the warrior-like back four.
Yet, we were still dangerous on the break and we had two really good chances to put the game to bed. That would have been too easy, and with 2 minutes of normal time left they scored.
We then, literally, limped into 6 minutes of injury time, with players falling all over the shop. Then, in what apparently was a harsh decision, Millwall loanee Ben Thompson was sent off and we managed to see out the extra two minutes of injury time to record another famous win at Fratton Park.
Addicks at Fratton Park:
Bow: “Our crowd didn’t stop singing the whole game. So to come here again and get another result is fantastic and I’m just over the moon for everybody.”
Elsewhere:
Chicago Addick 
Pompey fan here- 1st goal looked suspiciously offside, 2nd goal ball had definitely gone out of play on the touchline hence half the players stopped playing expecting throw to be given. Entire north stand and Fratton end saw that ball go out yet the ref and lino somehow didn’t or pretended not to. If we’re outplayed and lose fair enough, but to lose because of bad ref decisions is something else, then there’s the red card that never was, plus a list of wrong decisions that defied belief. The men in black won you 3 points without a shadow of doubt!!!
MK – I hope you managed to tread those sour grapes into a large glass of wine. Sounds as if you need one 😀
Fantastic evening down on the south coast. There were many good performances last night but for me Krystian Bielik was man of the match. His composure on the ball for a 20 year old defender/midfielder is incredible. While others look pressured to hoof and get rid, he looks to play intelligently and calmly.
Who knows, maybe the resting of players against Doncaster contributed to last nights win.
Totally agree Tex…a great display by the Addicks, one to remember. Bowyer’s doing a brilliant job with a small budget.
Pleased to see Lapslie is gaining confidence and putting in all action performances. Great team performance but injuries sustained are a worry with small squad, let’s hope Taylor and Grant recover quickly as we don’t have adequate cover, We need a strong player up front pity if we have to wait until January.
A note to MK – the WHOLE of the ball has to be over the WHOLE of the line for it to be out of play …. from my vantage point that was not the case with the Pompey claim for a throw-in in front of their supporters. Another well-known ‘law’ of football is to play to the referee’s whistle and don’t stop playing until you hear it! Two technicalities went against you, get over it…. if you’d suffered as many ‘dodgy’ decisions this season as the Addicks have then you may be forgiven your rant. As it is you’re still top of the table and are having a fantastic season so I’d take that after the last decade of off-field idiocy that both our clubs have suffered.
With a bit of luck we’ll both occupy the top 2 spots in the table at the end of the season.
Fantastic performance and one for the annals…a definite I was there match to rank alongside Millwall in the snow and a few others. There should be no argument about the result but the real reason why Portsmouth lost was down to their playing a certain set of tactics – too many inaccurate cross were pinged in from wide and Pearce and Bauer were able to deal with them easily, rarely did they run at our defence or use decoy runners to pull defenders away or try anything clever. It made dealing with the second half pressure a lot easier. There’s some mention of whether Ben Thompson deserved his red card, he went in studs up two footed and made contact with Lyle Taylor who literally limped through the last few minutes. It’s impossible to call a MotM – Lapslie chased everything and copped a few fouls but got up and kept running, Bielik was immense in the DM role, Taylor linked superbly and had two assists…no body played badly.
Pompey are not pretty to watch. However Jackett has built a team that plays a very physical and direct game. Jackett does know how to build promotion sides. Never aesthetically pleasing but effective.
They are no Wigan or Blackburn though.