Sunderland unsurprisingly fell to their tenth successive away defeat after yet another uninspiring performance on the road. Despite a strong army of red and white fans travelling half way around the world to be at Fratton Park, Roy Keane’s men couldn’t even muster a credible effort on target and as usual we left with exactly what we deserved, nothing.

Keane made two changes to the side that beat Wigan two weeks ago with Andy Reid and Grant Leadbitter starting in midfield, which meant no place for Michael Chopra or Roy O’Donovan in the first XI. The two sides only met six weeks ago with Sunderland coming out comfortable 2-0 winners, a similar result this time round would have went down a storm and ended our terrible run of form away from home.

Sunderland and in particular Andy Reid started brightly, with the Irishman a constant threat to Glenn Johnson down the left hand side, creating half chances that unfortunately couldn’t be converted. However as the game wore on Portsmouth began to perk up with Sulley Muntari firing wide from outside the box followed by Jermaine Defoe wasting a good opportunity after straying offside.

The first half didn’t offer much for the imagination with neither side creating any clear cut chances, meaning both James and Gordon had finished their crosswords and were well on the way to completing the picture puzzle before the interval, must be some kind of a record don’t you think?

HT 0-0

With no changes for either side at half time it was down to the same 22 players to try and generate some sort of excitement in a game that was spiralling boringly out of action. Grant Leadbitter went some way to doing that, fizzing a 25 yard free-kick inches wide of James’ left hand post, close but unfortunately not close enough.

Craig Gordon finally got his hands dirty, saving well from both Defoe and Baros in the space of a few minutes, as the silent home fans started to sense a breakthrough. And with 20 minutes to go it came, Niko Kranjcar was too clever for Phil Bardsley who brought him down (from my view I wouldn’t like to say if it was or wasn’t) in the box meaning a penalty for Portsmouth and another defeat looking more than likely for Sunderland.

Jermaine Defoe stepped up and blasted the ball past Craig Gordon to gave the home side the lead. Keane desperately tried to salvage a point, throwing on Chopra and Prica but it came to no avail as Sunderland still couldn’t manage a single shot on target, meaning a very easy game for David James, who happened to be making his 500th Premier League appearance, well done by the way.

So there you have it, yet another unadventurous away performance from a team more travel sick than an eight year old. Now I’m no tactical genius and I’m certainly no top class manager, but maybe if we tried attacking our opponents (like we seem to do at home) then maybe we might score a few goals and pick up a few points, but hey, that’s for another day. 20,139 saw Portsmouth 1-0 Sunderland.

Final Score: Portsmouth 1-0 Sunderland

ALS Man of the Match: Andy Reid

James Henderson

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