Mildenhall - 7 some really good saves, I felt he might have done better with the third, but he was still hobbling a bit from a collision earlier. Dragged the fourth out (from where I was it looked that it might have been over the line, just)
Leadbitter - 5 some good runs, but more often than not no killer pass at the end of them
Lockyer - 5 pretty solid, but many of his passes/clearances were wasteful
Parkes - 5 struggled against the beanpole Smith. Both he and Lockyer were exposed by our missing midfield for most of the game
Brown - 5 nice goal, some good runs, but where was he on a number of occasions in the first half, including the cross for the first goal
Bodin - 4 the odd nice touch, but usually then ran back into trouble. He and Leadbitter are probably a bit lightweight when together
Lawrence - 3 awful first half, better second when he did try to get it down and play a bit, but far too slow compared to the Pompey midfield
Sinclair - 5 worked hard but couldn't influence the game with little help from Lawrence
Mansell - 4 shouldn't be out wide, probably impacted Browns game too.
Easter - 5 doesn't seem to have any sort of understanding with Gaffney, technically good, but didn't really look positive enough for me
Gaffney - 6 worked hard, a real battle with their big defender, and didn't get his fair share of decisions from the ref. Should have put away his one on one.
Taylor - 6 far more positive and injected some urgency up front
Montano - 5 better suited to the position than poor old Mansell, but for a big fella was a bit lightweight
Lines - 4 a couple of flashes but also a few instances of not appearing too interested, perhaps not on long enough to really change what was by then a lost cause.
Crowd - 7 great turnout as always, great noise first half, quiet for much of the second, until 3-0 down when we sang in defiance/adversity
Ref - 4 gave most of the 50-50's to them (but maybe I'm biased)
Portsmouth - 8 really up for it. Their midfield were all Sinclair's at his best and just didn't let us have any time on the ball, and when they had it (which was most of the time it seemed) we sat off and let them play it through us.
I know we're not scoring DC per game now, but I fear that he might be threatening team spirit and harmony now by selecting Lawrence in a formation that means someone else plays out of position.
Lawrence with Mansell and Sinclair in a central 3, with wingbacks would/might have worked - putting Mansell out wide in a midfield four didn't.
We have got back to where we are with a young (mainly) and hungry team, bringing in Lawrence may be risking that?
I know we need a creative midfielder, but perhaps Lawrence isn't the right one, or playing him as we did yesterday isn't right, or hopefully it will just take a couple more games for him to get up to speed, and maybe it's unfair to judge too harshly on this game against a very good Portsmouth team who were really up for it after a couple of dodgy results of their own.
Interestingly a Pompey fan on the train home was saying to me that he thought the first half was very even. I guess if that second hadn't gone in on the stroke of half-time it might have been different,
and the scoreline probably colours our views.
