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Pompey 1 Wycombe 1: Should we laugh or cry?
Pompey 1 Wycombe 1: Should we laugh or cry?
Saturday, 20th Sep 2014 18:32 by Steve Bone at Fratton Park

It was difficult to know whether to be pleased or disappointed with a point at the end of this at-time breathless yet at-times ragged affair.

Given the number of times in the past couple of years Pompey have gone behind at home and then failed to salvage anything, you generally have to be pleased with a draw gained from a losing position. But equally, you couldn't help thinking the Blues ought to have taken all three points.

They were by far the better side for the opening 20 minutes and on possession and chances they could have been two or three up by then.

Then after Wycombe dominated much of the rest of the first half and the early stages of the second, probably deserving the lead given them by Sam Wood deflecting Peter Murphy's shot past a stranded Paul Jones, Pompey bossed the game's closing stages and might easily have had more to show for their efforts than Johnny Ertl's spectacular first Fratton goal.

Ertl's thundering volley from Dan Butler's corner with 20 minutes was the champagne moment of the afternoon and he deserved it for an influential second-half display after coming on as a sub for Jack Whatmough, who'd looked a little off the pace in the first half.

The equaliser, when it came, was not unexpected. Joe Devera and Craig Westcarr having both spurned good opportunities in the previous few minutes by shooting over from close range as Pompey's pressure intensified.

And once Pompey were level, they looked much the more likely side to go and win it. Miles Storey and Andy Barcham came off the bench to add emergy to Pompey's forward play, replacing Patrick Agyemang and Westcarr, who'd both worked hard without quite clicking as a pair. I'd have liked to have seen Barcham given a bit longer than he was, with his confidence high after his goal off the bench against the Daggers.

Jed Wallace, for me, was Pompey's best performer. From the very start he wanted plenty of the ball and got it. Wallace often beat his man, drove Pompey forward single-handedly at times and got in some decent crosses - but to his frustration, neither Westcarr nor Agyemang were ever quite in the right place to put away his balls into the box.

In midfield, James Dunne and Danny Hollands covered plenty of ground but didn't dominate as they have done on occasions this season. Hollands seems to have lost the threat in and around the opposition box that brought him five goals in Pompey's golden run at the end of the last campaign, while Wes Fogden's absence through injury is another factor holding back the Blues in this area.

We do seem to be missing Nigel Atangana's box-to-box running and range of passing. He is well on his way back to fitness and will be a welcome addition to the starting XI when he gets back in - at whose expense, I'm not sure.

At the back, you couldn't fault Paul Robinson nor Joe Devera - the former on the wrong end of some terrible decisions from ref Gary Sutton, who made more of those than an official should at this level. One free-kick given against Robinson for an excellent ball-winning tackle in injury time might have led to Wycombe grabbing an undeserved winner from the free-kick 30 yards out. Sutton ought to have been relieved to see the dead ball come to nothing.

Wycombe had three players booked - one of them, Paul Hayes, being carded for walking off too slowly when subbed. The referee, though, wasn't quite strict enough with Wycombe's cynical time-wasting, which began the moment they went ahead or was it even when it was still 0-0?

I've noticed over the past year and a bit many teams in this division will do everything they can to delay a game if they're ahead or drawing. And it is so frustrating, often ruining the game as a spectacle. It's not something I noticed or have noticed at a higher level, nor lower, but it needs dealing with.

Refs need to book a player as soon as they are too slow to go off for an injury or substitition, or show a goalie yellow if he is too tardy with a goal-kick. One or two red cards for players who time-waste twice in a short space of time might stamp it out and stop teams like Wycombe from hanging on for a point in such cynical fashion.

Anyway, rant over, Pompey are 11th after nine games and I'm not unhappy with that. It's an extraordinarily tight table and one more win would have seen them as high as fourth. They need to find more consistency, and probably still need to settle on their strongest line-up and formation - and I'm not sure that a system with Dan Butler and Alex Wynter as the wing-backs is it.

But let's remember a few things - we own our own club, we're not going to get relegated and we don't have to watch anything like the turgid stuff Richie Barker's teams used to serve up. We've got some decent players in all positions and have the potential to make a strong push for promotion. And we certainly don't need to waste time in games to scrape results.

Pompey life ain't so bad.

Pompey (3-5-2): Jones; Devera, Robinson, Whatmough (Ertl 46); Wynter, Dunne, Wallace, Hollands (c), Butler; Agyemang (Storey 60), Westcarr (Barcham 85). Subs not used: Poke, Webster, Shorey, Close.

Referee: Gary Sutton

Attendance: 16,171 (729 away fans)

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