After a couple of late stoppages as the lights went, our visit to Portsmouth eventually finished in a 2-2 draw.
As expected, Simon Grayson made a couple of changes to his starting line-up. Becchio had recovered from his back problem and was back in the side, but O’Brien was forced out with his hamstring strain and was replaced by Bromby, who thankfully seems to be preferred to Collins these days.
Leeds produced the first chance of the game when Ashdown almost made a hash of collecting a shot from Gradel, but for most of the first half Portsmouth forced Leeds back on the defensive., winning numerous corners. From the first of them we allowed Halford enough space to send in a firm header that clipped the bar, though Scmeichel was well positioned to have dealt with it if it had been any lower.
Nugent was wasteful with a couple of opportunities, but it was no great surprise when Portsmouth took the lead after 26 minutes. Lawrence was completely unchallenged over on the Portsmouth left and he went past several defenders as he moved into the box. He pulled it back to Ward, who gave Scmeichel no chance with a cracking shot from 20 yards.
They could have doubled the lead moments later when Scmeichel made a decent save from Utaka, but then Leeds finally woke up and we created a few chances of our own in front of the Fratton End. The best of these fell to Howson after a good move involving Gradel and Watt, but he could only shoot wide.
And after half time we carried on where we left off, and were rewarded with the equalising goal only two minutes after the interval. Snodgrass swung a free kick into the area and when Howson got in behind the defence to knock it back across the face of goal, Becchio was on hand to smash it into the net. And we continued to put the home side under pressure as Johson sent a free kick over the bar and Howson forced Ashdown to get down quickly to make a smart save.
But on the hour mark Pompey got themselves back in front with a route one goal that came slightly against the run of play. A long punt downfield from Ashdown was flicked on by Kanu, and Utaka eventually bundled his way past two defenders and curled the ball round Scmeichel and inside the far post. Bruce complained that he’d been fouled, but no one took any notice. That prompted Grayson to make his only substitution of the game, going to 4-4-2 as Somma replaced Watt as he aimed to get us back on terms as soon as possible.
And it took only two minutes to get the desired result. Becchio sent a pass through the heart of the Portsmouth defence to pick out Somma on the edge of the area, and the South African took one touch to steady himself before smashing a left foot shot past Ashdown. Dare we hope that Somma will make the starting line-up a bit more often as he continues to demonstrate his goalscoring prowess at this level.
We continued to press with Somma, Gradel and Snodgrass all having shots blocked, but then came the first of two stoppages for a floodlight failure. And after Pompey had had a quick whip-round for ten pence to put in the meter we seemed to have lost a bit of momentum and Pompey produced the next chance of the game as Sonko headed just wide.
Leeds continued to press for a winner, with Snodgrass our main inspiration. His inswinging free kick was headed just wide by Howson and he also forced Ashdown into another fine save and then sent a shot just past the post. Then the lights went out for a second time, and such are Pompey’s desperate financial problems that it took them a full ten minutes to scrape together another ten pence for the meter.
When they finally came back on the two sides seemed content to play out the remaining time, with nobody creating any further chances, and the ref was keen to blow the final whistle before the lights went out again. This wasn’t a bad result for Leeds in a difficult away game that came so soon after the Arsenal game, but it was our fourth draw in the last six league games. With Forest and Watford just behind us and having games in hand we’ve got work to do to be sure of a play-off place, but we’ve now got ten days before the next game at Hull to recharge our batteries and hopefully get back to winning ways. MOT.