Pompey’s impressive unbeaten run in the Football League Championship came to a very disappointing end at Pride Park in front of 29,086 fans, Derby’s biggest crowd of the season. So much more was expected.
Pompey were forced to make a change to their line-up, David Nugent missed out with a knee injury and Joel Ward came into the team at right-back. On loan Greg Halford pushed up to right midfield with John Utaka started down the middle in his preferred centre forward role. Interestingly, Nugent was nursing his injury from the bench.
Derby started the quicker of the two teams and Pompey conceded a number of unnecessary free-kicks, Mullins and Mokoena, who received an early yellow card from referee Mr Webster, two of the guilty parties.
Ashdown made two excellent saves in the first half. Firstly, from a Robbie Savage free-kick with a two fisted punch away of a direct shot. Secondly, from a Chris Commons point blank effort two yards out, the ball hitting Ashdown’s right boot before bouncing up and hitting his right glove. It was an instinctive save but Commons really should have scored.
It was a frantic first 20 minutes with Pompey mainly under the cosh although they weren’t without their own chances. Dickinson found himself through but his strike was blasted well over the bar and Utaka found himself in a good position after Derby lost the ball in the middle of the park. He released Kitson whose left footed, on-target shot was tipped away by Fielding. Amazingly the referee signalled for a goal kick.
Derby’s pressure mounted and they deservedly took the lead with a Savage penalty, Mokoena was adjudged to have fouled Cywka after Dickinson lost the ball. TV replays weren’t as convincing as the commentators made out, Mokoena may have just got his toe to the ball. But the linesman put his flag across his chest and the referee awarded it. Later the tricky Cywka also had a shot deflected over the bar off Sonko, again the officials missing the corner.
Derby regularly broke forward quickly breaking, flooding the midfield and outnumbering Pompey. Neither Brown or Mullins could get a grip on proceedings, Kitson wasn’t receiving any service, Lawrence couldn’t get into the game and Utaka was disappointingly caught offside on more than one occasion.
Just before the break, Joel Ward committed a ‘1950s style challenge’ on goalkeeper Fielding and the ball dribbled into the net with the Derby stopper sprawled on the grass. The referee disallowed the ‘goal’.
Pompey were sent out early for the second half by Steve Cotterill but weren’t able to gain any momentum quickly conceding a second goal which was scored by Green. He was one of only two Derby players in the penalty box outnumbered by Pompey defenders yet he still got to the ball first. It was very poor defending and was celebrated by the Derby fans during their team’s next phase of passing possession with a series of ole, ole, ole! The home team was rampant.
Kanu came on to replace Ward with Halford moving to right back and Pompey entered their best period of the game, with The King at the heart of some decent possession, providing some nice touches and making some good passes albeit with no end result.
Pompey had a good appeal for a penalty after a jumping Derby player handled the ball in a challenge within the box but the desperate pleas of the players, especially Liam Lawrence, were waved away by the officials. Brown received his fourth booking of the season for his protestations and was shortly replaced by Richard Hughes.
Pompey’s two best chances of the second half came in the last 10 minutes. Kanu manoeuvred himself into space in the box only to blast his shot well wide when more composure was required; most unlike him. Dickinson was released down the left from a quickly taken free-kick in the four minutes of added time but his well driven shot whistled over the cross bar into the travelling Pompey fans.
Earlier here had been one final fright for Pompey when the impressive Commons hit a shot from over 40 yards and forced Ashdown to scramble back and claw the ball to safety.
Pompey were well-beaten in this encounter by Nigel Clough’s Derby County team that moved into fourth place in the Championship. Pompey dropped to thirteenth. Overall, it was a poor performance with too many players off their game. Jamie Ashdown was Pompey’s best player on the day; he had to be otherwise the score could have been much worse.
Next up: table-topping QPR on Tuesday 9th November, 7:45PM at Fratton Park.
By @PompeyChicken at Twitter.com
