Pompy persevere

Pretty poor result last night. They put 10 men behind the ball and invited us to break them down at home. We weren't able to. They were happy with a point, which is fair enough for them. We played quite well in the first half but weren't able to keep the tempo going after the break. The really disappointing part is that we could have gone third if we won as the other results went our way. Obviously we're not going to win the league this year but the least we can do is get into third and not finish miles behind Utd and Chelsea.

The midfield was fairly makeshift. Both Guthrie and El Zahr made their league debuts. Guthrie looked decent but El Zhar looks quite small and barely got a touch.

Defence played well but didn't really have much to deal with. Kanu, their leading scorer, only came on as a late sub. Don't know why he didn't start.

Pennant was very poor. He didn't stay wide as much as he should have. He also got wound up by the Pompy players and was lucky to stay on the pitch. I think that Rafa should have taken him off before Garcia. Neither played well but Luis wasn't in danger of getting sent off.

Carra did well enough in midfield. I don't expect it to continue as Xabi should be back for the Wigan trip on Sat afternoon. We could really do with an away win. It's about time that we get one. I can see us struggling to score if Wigan sit back. If they come onto us then we should have a decent chance of winning. Maybe Bellamy will come back and bang in a hat trick now that his trial is over and he's an innocent man. Maybe not.