Chapter 1: What recent match updates are discussed in the episode?
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Hull City maintained their bid for automatic promotion from the Championship, with a narrow victory at Portsmouth, who were left ruining their wastefulness in front of goal. Pompey had by far the better of the first half, dominating possession and creating more chances, with the Tigers' only real opportunity coming when Olly McBurney's early effort was ruled out for offside.
The second half was more even until Adrian Segecic's short back pass put Nicolas Schmid under pressure, allowing Matt Crooks to slide in to score for the visitors. Portsmouth remain in 19th, five points clear of the relegation zone, while the Tigers are now third. Hull keeper Ivor Pandor was kept busy as Portsmouth had 15 attempts on goal in the first half.
Hull now face what could be a pivotal week as they play promotion rivals Ipswich Town and Millwall.
Chapter 2: How did Hull City perform against Portsmouth?
At Fratton Park the Tigers thought they had continued their momentum from Tuesday's win over Derby, as McBurnie put the ball in the net after Joe Gellhart's effort was saved, only to see the linesman's flag go up for offside. The early let-off spurred Pompey into action, with Terry Devlin's long-range effort drawing an unconvincing save from Tigers' Ivor Pandor.
The goalkeeper put those nerves to rest soon after, producing a terrific stop from Regan Poole at close range, as the visitors were unable to clear a Pompey corner. Segecik was next to try his luck for the home team, going it alone before firing a cross goal from a difficult angle. After the break, the deadlock was eventually broken through a huge lapse in concentration.
Segecik had already been lucky to get away with one short pass before repeating the same error in his own penalty box. Schmid was able to scramble the ball away from the diving McBurnie, but only as far as Crooks who connected perfectly to send the ball into an empty net.
Despite peppering the Hull goal in the closing stages, Pompey were unable to find a leveller, leaving the home fans and boss John Mazzino to reflect on yet another frustrating defeat.
Chapter 3: What were the key moments in the first half of the match?
John Mazzino told BBC Radio, I'm very disappointed with the result. We controlled pretty much the entire game. Ultimately we came away with 21 shots, Hull had two, we completely shot ourselves in the foot with the goal. The manner of the goal was completely unacceptable. I thought we didn't have quite so much control in the second half, it makes it more frustrating in a way.
Today was one where we really should have taken advantage.
Yeah, I'm really disappointed with the loss. The way that we lost the game is just unacceptable, really. I think we completely shot ourselves in the foot. The only way we were going to concede is doing what we did. So we didn't learn our lessons. We spoke about it at half-time.
Chapter 4: What led to Hull City's goal in the second half?
I think Hull had one shot in the first half, which came from us giving the ball away, being too slow in the middle of the park, and one shot in the second half, which came from us unnecessarily giving the ball away. So, yeah, really disappointed. I think there's a couple of things.
If you have one of those afternoons where nothing's going right for you at the top end of the pitch, which at times I think in the first and second half particularly it wasn't going well, then you come away and go, right, you take the point and we've... I think, been the more dominant side for 90 minutes against a side who have just gone third.
And you go, OK, for whatever reason, we couldn't make it happen in the final third. And we don't score from one of our set pieces. And we had another absolute bucket full today. And I think if you take that, you can accept it. But the fact that we shot ourselves in the foot, the fact that we did things that we specifically speak about day in, day out,
We spoke about our half-time and it's a case of really going off script and not sticking to what we speak about every day. We talked about a couple of bits in the final third about how we're going to try and create a little bit more. I thought we just left our wingers to it, so we left Harvey and Milly to it far too much.
There were times, there were days where if the wingers are having a field day then you do leave them to it but I thought Hull doubled up very well and we just didn't have enough underneath that to try and create and try and cause them a few more problems in the final third.
So it was first of all about being more creative there and then second of all about making sure that we were locked off and we didn't cause ourselves any issues by doing things that put us in trouble and unfortunately we did and that was the difference in the game. It's an awful goal to concede. I've got no issue if we're trying to play and we're trying to do the right things.
If you look at how we actually concede, it's a flick on the outside of the boot. I actually think that was symptomatic of any time we made an error this afternoon in possession. If I'm asking the boys to play and I'm asking them to be brave, I want them to do it properly. I want them to pass the ball properly. I want them to move it. I want them to shift it.
I don't want them to take too many touches. Whenever we took too many touches, whenever we decided we were good players and we wanted to... do things that we don't work on and we haven't spoke about. I thought we were our own worst enemy. I don't think any of the work's undone because we've put ourselves in a really good position and a couple of the results today haven't been punished.
I just think there's a shift we need in the mentality of the group where I think when it backs us to the wall we've produced some performances and some results and all of a sudden we have a little cushion, a little gap and maybe I don't know what creeps in but certainly we weren't
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Chapter 5: What were the coach's reflections on the match outcome?
It means that when Connor Ogilvie is relieved of the responsibility of partnering Regan Paul as a centre-half, Pompey will have not one but two top-flight left-backs fighting for the No. 3 shirt. So how has Jacob Farrell been faring during February his first full month on loan to Western Sydney Wanderers?
It turns out it's been rather an uphill struggle for him, and his teammates come to that, though Western Sydney had already been struggling in the A-League, and their poor run, meant that they sacked their head coach Alan Sturgesic and assistant head coach Ela Arati Morales, on almost the same day that Farrell touched down down under.
Though he got game time they were not games to remember Western Sydney won only one of their nine games in February until yesterday's match, may or may not have got them back on track, a 4-0 win over MacArthur. Jacob Farrell played in the game, but appears to her distinguished himself only by picking up a yellow card.
Sydney's new manager is Gary Van Egmont, capped 15 times by Australia in his playing days, but a man who worked his way up to a league management via running a number of women's teams, as did his predecessor, and as did the owner-chairman of Sydney Jefferson Cheng. Western Sydney currently sit 11th in their league-played 19-1-5-drawn-5-lost-9.
Up at St Johnson Toby Stewart has had to learn how to pick the ball out of the back of the net all over again. From 16 December he kept six clean sheets in a row but then air put three past them in the Scottish Challenge Cup quarter-final, and yesterday the same team had the audacity to score a league goal against him.
It's beginning to look to many observers as though his loan deal to the club that is opening a towering lead at the top of the Scottish second tier, is going to be one of Pompey's all-time successful loans.
Yeah, the loan system is what the Americans call a crapshoot. It's not rude. It's a dice game. You probably knew that. A game of craps. But the idea is the reason they call things that are a gamble a crapshoot is because it's just a pure matter of luck. And it's a pure matter of luck whether your loan works out. And we've had players lent to us who've been fantastic.
And we've had players lent to us who just did not work out at all. If anything, it did one or two players, and I'm not going to name names, some harm. Coming to Pompey and not cutting it. And then the crowd getting on one particular players back really badly, I thought. But anyway, and then you get Pompey players going out on loan, such as Farrell. It's uphill for him.
You begin to wonder what his future is going to be at Pompey. This loan isn't working out for him down under. At least he's got his home. He's home. And that may help his body mend and his mind get even stronger. But he's not getting the footballing experience that you'd want from a player that you've bought. And that has had some injury problems.
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