Away Match Day Thread 06/04/2026 - MDT: Portsmouth v Oxford United

[SteMerritt]

 

[Topper Haines]

IF we're relegated (and I don't think we will be) alongside Leicester, would that make Gary Rowett the only man to have ever relegated two teams from the same league in the same season?

Joe Kinnear...
It's the only thing Kassan said that made me laugh.

 

[Yellowmania]

I didn’t catch that but if true I can only apologise. That’s pretty shitty behaviour from any club.

For the guy that mentioned the arrogance of singing “we’re gonna win the league” at the start of the season, I can categorically confirm that’s 100% tongue in cheek. This is the same fans that sing “how s**t are you... we’re drawing away” we know we’re s**t lol. It’s just a question are we s**t enough to get relegated.

There were 3 different occasions of things thrown onto the pitch. As well as Mills there was one at Brannagan and also one on the side under the stand with a clock.
And I’ll add I quite like Pompey fans apart from the obvious knob.

 

[Foley]

There were 3 different occasions of things thrown onto the pitch. As well as Mills there was one at Brannagan and also one on the side under the stand with a clock.
And I’ll add I quite like Pompey fans apart from the obvious knob.

And I believe that Vaulks wanted to do a long throw and he was impeded from a fan from doing so.

 

[The Voice Of Reason]

It seemed an odd decision to start Roosken and then not even have him on the bench next game - which meant we had to have Placheta as a sort of hybrid left back, which completely negated him.

The obvious sub to me was take off Donley, who was completely and utterly spent, for Makosso, and move Brown to left back. That might have shored up our defence, wasted some time, and maybe we wouldn’t have conceded that final goal, who knows.

I like Bloomfield but he does seem to make some random/panicky decisions sometimes. Certain players are in one week, completely out the next (Roosken, Ter Avest) some are seemingly undroppable no matter what, and some are frozen out.

He explained Roosden he picked him for a specific task in one game but it didn't work and he hasn't done it in training either so he didn't make the squad.
Honesty from.him I like it

 

[The Voice Of Reason]

And I believe that Vaulks wanted to do a long throw and he was impeded from a fan from doing so.

The Pompey fans were hitting him in the back it said so on commentary

 

[Teacher]

The Pompey fans were hitting him in the back it said so on commentary

And he should know better as an experienced player…..

You can argue whether it should happen all day long, but when you lean back against the hoardings when it’s that tight, with that context, then he is literally wasting our own time.

Remember him doing the same away at Stoke. Takes an age to take it. Messes it up. Moans about it. Booked. 2 mins to get back in play and the opposition have it.

Vaulks should not be near the team. Neither should Harris. There are 2 of Bloomfield’s ongoing mistakes.

Placheta at LWB? Since when?

HTA (who is a player I love) on the right of a back 3? Why did we even go to a 3? Totally unnecessary.

Should’ve took Donley and MPH off after an hour/65 mins. Neither contributing in either direction.

Score and sit in. Manager default. He is costing us points and quite a few of them.

Credit to the way he’s given us a chance but it’s getting infuriating watch us constantly being naive and lacking a clinical nature.

 

[Sam_Brown]

Personally don't think it was a red. Having said that, he glanced at Mills before taking him out and he gave the ref a decision to make it. Statistically speaking Pompey, I believe, have performed better this season against teams around them than those at the top. Players coming back is one thing but having them match sharp is another. I have a feeling Pompey might stay up but in the nicest possible way, I hope they don't and it us who stays up.

It’s weird. In terms of points we definitely have done better against worse teams. But the performances tend to be better against some higher up the table. Just can’t bloody score.

 

[WE Yellow]

And he should know better as an experienced player…..

You can argue whether it should happen all day long, but when you lean back against the hoardings when it’s that tight, with that context, then he is literally wasting our own time.

Remember him doing the same away at Stoke. Takes an age to take it. Messes it up. Moans about it. Booked. 2 mins to get back in play and the opposition have it.

Vaulks should not be near the team. Neither should Harris. There are 2 of Bloomfield’s ongoing mistakes.

Placheta at LWB? Since when?

HTA (who is a player I love) on the right of a back 3? Why did we even go to a 3? Totally unnecessary.

Should’ve took Donley and MPH off after an hour/65 mins. Neither contributing in either direction.

Score and sit in. Manager default. He is costing us points and quite a few of them.

Credit to the way he’s given us a chance but it’s getting infuriating watch us constantly being naive and lacking a clinical nature.

Find it hard to disagree with any of this.

Really could not understand the subs yesterday, Ter Avest aside. Placheta for Spencer was really baffling, I understand wanting to negate pace down Pompey's right, or equally getting Placheta in behind, but he played as an out and out full back. We were then hamstrung, Makosso was on the sideline waiting to come on for at least 5 minutes before they equalised - why did we wait? Makosso should have replaced Spencer. Ter Avest or Brown on the left, Makosso central with Helik or on the right. Before their equaliser with Makosso coming on who on earth was he going to come on for? Donley? And switch to a back 5 with Placheta as LWB? Concerning.

We finished the game with a left hand side of Placheta and Harris. That's quite unfathomable.

He's better than Rowett but that's an incredibly low bar, I really don't think Bloomfield is that good. I think the best man for our club was in Portsmouth's dugout yesterday.

 

[Joey]

And he should know better as an experienced player…..

You can argue whether it should happen all day long, but when you lean back against the hoardings when it’s that tight, with that context, then he is literally wasting our own time.

Remember him doing the same away at Stoke. Takes an age to take it. Messes it up. Moans about it. Booked. 2 mins to get back in play and the opposition have it.

Vaulks should not be near the team. Neither should Harris. There are 2 of Bloomfield’s ongoing mistakes.

Placheta at LWB? Since when?

HTA (who is a player I love) on the right of a back 3? Why did we even go to a 3? Totally unnecessary.

Should’ve took Donley and MPH off after an hour/65 mins. Neither contributing in either direction.

Score and sit in. Manager default. He is costing us points and quite a few of them.

Credit to the way he’s given us a chance but it’s getting infuriating watch us constantly being naive and lacking a clinical nature.

Very fair point. You can argue the morals of it but you know it's going to happen, it's the same as being too physical with a defender shielding the ball while holding on to a lead. Them going down is bending the rules but you know it'll happen, don't give them the opportunity.

I was pleased to see HTA come on and while he gave us more in possession than Long, which was probably the point, we neutured most of those benefits by playing him in a back three. I don't get the logic behind putting an extra defender on when you're against 10, having that takes away a lot of your numerical advantages. Spencer may have scored by being in the right place and fair play to him for that but he generally gives you nothing going forward, espeically on the left. When you've got MPH ahead of him always cutting inside then you're left with absolutely no width on that side at all and become easier to play against. On that point I didnt hate the Shemmy sub but again would rather he had been playing as a proper winger rather than a wingback.

He's not done a terrible job but there are some head scratching decisions. As a rule I really don't like three at the back as we don't have the players for it and it's no surprise we look worse when we play it, much as we usuallu look worse when Vaulks and Harris enter the arena. The manager has to be aware of this and come up with different solutions.

 

[OUFCGav]

Find it hard to disagree with any of this.

Really could not understand the subs yesterday, Ter Avest aside. Placheta for Spencer was really baffling, I understand wanting to negate pace down Pompey's right, or equally getting Placheta in behind, but he played as an out and out full back. We were then hamstrung, Makosso was on the sideline waiting to come on for at least 5 minutes before they equalised - why did we wait? Makosso should have replaced Spencer. Ter Avest or Brown on the left, Makosso central with Helik or on the right. Before their equaliser with Makosso coming on who on earth was he going to come on for? Donley? And switch to a back 5 with Placheta as LWB? Concerning.

We finished the game with a left hand side of Placheta and Harris. That's quite unfathomable.

He's better than Rowett but that's an incredibly low bar, I really don't think Bloomfield is that good. I think the best man for our club was in Portsmouth's dugout yesterday.

we had already switched to a back 3 at half time. Spencer was going to be targetted for a 2nd yellow, so taking him off was right.

 

[londonyellow]

And he should know better as an experienced player…..

You can argue whether it should happen all day long, but when you lean back against the hoardings when it’s that tight, with that context, then he is literally wasting our own time.

Remember him doing the same away at Stoke. Takes an age to take it. Messes it up. Moans about it. Booked. 2 mins to get back in play and the opposition have it.

Vaulks should not be near the team. Neither should Harris. There are 2 of Bloomfield’s ongoing mistakes.

Placheta at LWB? Since when?

HTA (who is a player I love) on the right of a back 3? Why did we even go to a 3? Totally unnecessary.

Should’ve took Donley and MPH off after an hour/65 mins. Neither contributing in either direction.

Score and sit in. Manager default. He is costing us points and quite a few of them.

Credit to the way he’s given us a chance but it’s getting infuriating watch us constantly being naive and lacking a clinical nature.

Not sure I agree. We were noticeably better when Vaulks came on. The problem wasn't that we 'sat in'. The problem was that our defending for the second goal was awful. 7 mins left in a game or whatever it was – we should be seeing that out.

 

[McXal]

One slightly comical observation I had from the stands yesterday was on Placheta’s cameo as a LB. I’ll call it an enforced cameo as Bloomfield obviously HAD to get Spencer off after he should have been sent off (although, as per my prior post, his first yellow card was never a booking, which I think the ref knew so gave him some leniency on the second incident, which was a yellow all day).

Anyway…Placheta can’t take throw ins. As in, he took one and is so incapable of executing the skill that it meekly looped high into the air barely getting it more than a few yards from the touchline. From then he was visibly not trusted, and we had to eat even more time up getting Brown to trudge over and take the left sided throws from our half. Shemmy’s deer-in-headlights body language every time he trotted over as if to say ‘I don’t really have to take this throw in, do I!?’ really made me chuckle.

At the time I quite appreciated the attacking intent from Bloomfield to think about having Placheta bomb on from LB once he took Spencer off. But it didn’t really work out, Shemmy’s only contributions were occasional defensive clearances…and I wonder if we’d have been better putting Makosso on and moving Brown to LB. (And saving Shemmy to replace MPH who wasn’t having his best game)

 

[Followtheox1]

we had already switched to a back 3 at half time. Spencer was going to be targetted for a 2nd yellow, so taking him off was right.

I thought that we had switched as commentators said so but I'm not so sure. Surely if we switched to a three, logically Sam Long would have stayed on as one of the three or if he came off then it would be Makossa who would have come on not HTA. HTA seemed to be playing as a right back and Spencer as a LB. I think he put HTA on as a more attacking fullback.

 

[jaybeachjump]

It's taken me 24 hours to process the pain.
I don't have anything much to add to the mostly intelligent points posted above, except maybe this: I don't agree we have a particular problem with our mentality, despite dropping 4 points in the last 2 games. The Championship is very much a late-goal division, with long injury time periods and a high level of competitiveness creating late swings.
I DO think we have a weakness defending the edge of our box however. We look slow to come out and prone to not tracking runners into the D, particularly on the second ball. If we don't sort this out quickly we'll be in trouble against Wrexham and Millwall, who have much better finishers than Pompey.

 

[Victor1986]

Not sure I agree. We were noticeably better when Vaulks came on. The problem wasn't that we 'sat in'. The problem was that our defending for the second goal was awful. 7 mins left in a game or whatever it was – we should be seeing that out.

The defending wasn't even as good as "awful" - if you can't defend against 10 men for 10 minutes then there is no hope for our remaining matches is there?

 

[Village-Yellow]

we had already switched to a back 3 at half time. Spencer was going to be targetted for a 2nd yellow, so taking him off was right.

Spencer was lucky to leave the field as a sub rather than looking at a 2nd yellow.

 

[90syeIlow]

What you don’t say is that we may have only won 4 but actually have only lost 5, which is reasonable. It won’t be good enough in the end but at least they have hung on. The bottom line is we haven’t been good enough and i expect we will spend all summer talking about where it all went wrong.

If we'd held on at Charlton and yesterday, I feel we'd be safe and would be singing MB's praises. It's not his fault that Brown and Mills had moments of stupidity causing us to drop 4 points unnecessarily.

 

[90syeIlow]

 

[uptheus]

As disappointing as yesterday was, I am even more convinced now that we will have enough to stay up. I was more confident about the Watford game than about the Portsmouth game. With the way teams are playing around us and the fixtures they have left, I think two wins and a couple of draws will be enough. Portsmouth and Blackburn - not sure they will win another game. On top of that, Leicester just look awful, and I don't think they have the fight in them; we do. This time next week, we could be 1-2 points outside of the relegation zone.

Really!

 

[uptheus]

Long overhit at least 4 channel balls in the first half, Ter Avest's first action was to bring the ball down, feed it infield to Vaulks and then receive back and spread it wide to Spencer - he's levels above, when fit.

Yeah, but Vaulks wasn’t on and Konak wasn’t offering anything of real note offensively. Our midfield was virtually non existent in the first half, hence why I felt Vaulks improved us (never thought I’d say that!!). It’s not something I would have thought of based upon his recent showings as we needed movement and pace which isn’t normally his traite e.g. the age he took to take the throw in at the end even before the incident of him either being held or pushed by a Pompey fan when finally taking it which meant we didn’t get chance for the 2nd phase when he had a chance to cross the ball as the referee blew the final whistle which if he had taken it quicker we would have!!, and as I said, he was much better than Konak on the offensive side of things. I felt that MPH and Donley were not offering anything, hence replacing them with Placheta and Prelec would have put us more on the front foot.

 

[90syeIlow]

MB has made some questionable decisions, but he's also made some very good ones.

What I like about him is that he generally seems quick to make a necessary change (taking Spencer off) and if he makes a poor decision in game, he usually rectifies the mistake by the next match. I think his potential as a head coach is high, much higher than Rowett's, and we will be fine with him at the helm.

 

[ubermeistervonmeat]

I've always rated HTA. Thought he came in to a difficult game state and handled it very well. Would have liked to have seen much more of him during his time with us.

Very steady pro

 

[West Oxon U’s]

Could HTA have done more to block Alli’s cross and then to leave Dozzell unmarked was criminal.

 

[maidenheadox]

And he should know better as an experienced player…..

You can argue whether it should happen all day long, but when you lean back against the hoardings when it’s that tight, with that context, then he is literally wasting our own time.

Remember him doing the same away at Stoke. Takes an age to take it. Messes it up. Moans about it. Booked. 2 mins to get back in play and the opposition have it.

Vaulks should not be near the team. Neither should Harris. There are 2 of Bloomfield’s ongoing mistakes.

Placheta at LWB? Since when?

HTA (who is a player I love) on the right of a back 3? Why did we even go to a 3? Totally unnecessary.

Should’ve took Donley and MPH off after an hour/65 mins. Neither contributing in either direction.

Score and sit in. Manager default. He is costing us points and quite a few of them.

Credit to the way he’s given us a chance but it’s getting infuriating watch us constantly being naive and lacking a clinical nature.

Placheta at LWB is an easy one to explain. He would have been coming on for MPH right up until the point that Spencer put himself one tackle away from a sending off. At that point Spencer had to come off and Plachata was the only option. I also think Plachata has played wing back for us previously.

 

[JOHN BOY]

I thought that we had switched as commentators said so but I'm not so sure. Surely if we switched to a three, logically Sam Long would have stayed on as one of the three or if he came off then it would be Makossa who would have come on not HTA. HTA seemed to be playing as a right back and Spencer as a LB. I think he put HTA on as a more attacking fullback.

I think longy got pulled because his distribution was awful.

 

[uptheus]

I think longy got pulled because his distribution was awful.

I think he got pulled as Bloomfield thought ter Avest would offer more going forward, but that didn’t really materialise.

 

[Mad Dog]

Bloomfield is ticking over at 1.2 ppg compared to 0.86 ppg under Rowett. Over a season thats the difference between 54 points to 40.

That isn't down to January signings alone, especially as Konak, and to a lesser extent, Donley, are the only ones making a real impact.

Not perfect, and still needs to finish the job, but Bloomfield deserves much more credit than some give him.

I agree, He's got his faults, and makes some strange decisions sometimes, but Bloomfield's done a lot better than Rowett would have.

Rowett's working with arguably a much better set of players at Leicester, and he's still making a pigs ear of it!

 

[maccydee]

Just putting it out there again that if Harris (North Leigh in a couple of years) scored from 4 yards on Friday, this would still have been a cracking weekend for us.

We can still get out of this, in spite of our many weak links.

Was it you at the fans forum who went on about a new contract for Harris?

 

[holdsteady]

It’s a strange time to be bringing up the strengths of Rowett after he dropped a clanger against Sheffield Wednesday.

 

[londonyellow]

Don't be a f*****g nob

Just a little joke. Lighten up