Chapter 1: What happened in the QPR vs. Pompey match?
QPR 6, Pompey 1. At least I think it was 6. I came away with a couple of minutes of the added time left. So it might have been 7. I don't know. Guy Whittingham said after the fifth goal went in, what can I say? But at the end of that game, I'm going to go further and I suspect you share this This thought, not so much what can I say, what can I think?
It's impossible to get your head around what happened at Loftus Road this afternoon over a 98-minute stretch of football. Let's look at it lots of funny old ways. If you were to edit out the goals... show the 82 85 minutes of non-scoring football You'd be hard-pushed to work out which side was going to win You sat somebody down and said we've taken out the goals.
You just get to see the game Who do you think? After the final whistle, who do you think won?
Chapter 2: How can we understand the unexpected scoreline of 6-1?
There'd be an argument I think anybody would say, if anybody did win it, they shaded it. 2-1. 1-0. Was it a 3-2? Nah. Plenty of people would have gone 1-0. But it was 6-1. It's going to be one of the mysteries that we'll take to the grave, each and every one of us. You, me...
All the 18,000, 19,000, probably more, die-hard Pompey fans in Portsmouth, around Portsmouth, across the UK, in oh-so-many various countries. Pompey Sound is listened to by an awful lot of people in the United States of America and in various other countries that would surprise you a little bit. Japan, not the Soviet Union nowadays, Russia, of course.
But my point is, all of us who have seen this game, and I don't think you'll get this from the highlights, because when they show the highlights, when you see the highlights on YouTube, you will see just seven goals. because they only have time for about nine minutes, don't they, when they cut it down to highlights.
But to watch the entire game, as those of us who are lucky enough to watch the entire game, it will be an abiding, unsolvable mystery. It is the JFK assassination saga, all over again, a parlor game. You can sit and discuss and think and talk about it until you're blue in the mouth and the brain. How on earth did we end up losing that one like that? Six is the beginning of the ignominious scores.
Five is a lot of goals to concede. Four is a lot of goals to concede. We don't like three. But when you get to six... Well, next stop, seven or eight. And then, you know, you're making headlines on the sports pages. Everybody's eye is attracted to a game that's got a seven or an eight. Actually, everybody's eye is attracted to a game whose result has got a six. And today, that was us.
We're the side that conceded six. I've got to have a slick swig of beer.
I've just got to step further away from the door and into the great outdoors. I mean, hang on.
A lot of our players played really well, I thought. A lot of our players played true to form. Regan Poole is commanding. He didn't make any glaring schoolboy errors. Schochnessy is Schochnessy. Probably our best solid centre-half. Right-back Devlin, left-back Ogilvie. That's a solid defence right there.
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Chapter 3: What insights can we gain from the performance of both teams?
And in front of them, Pack and Adams. And yet, QPR 6, Pompey 1. That's a terrific defence. We've got an excellent goalkeeper. A terrific back four. Very good back four. Good as anybody in the championship. Pretty close to being as good as anybody in the championship. And two guys screening them. Two guys in front of them. And Swift was playing quite deep as well. So we had the cover. And yet.
QPR 6. Pompey 1. People are bewildered. Pompey fans, some will be angry, some will be climbing on the bandwagon of calling for heads to roll, wanting to let blood. That's not going to get us anywhere. There are still lots of points to be played for. But there's a mystery that I'm looking forward to a man of the ability of John Massino to try to solve for us what happened there this afternoon.
Chapter 4: What factors contributed to Pompey's surprising defeat?
A 3pm kick-off. I was beginning to drift towards the view that maybe 12.30 kick-offs and 8 o'clock kick-offs and Friday kick-offs and Monday kick-offs. They were beginning to throw us a little bit. And of course it's the same for everyone. Or is it? Are we getting more 12.30s, Fridays, Mondays, kick-offs than most in the championship? And if so, is that playing any part in us being where we are?
Along with the injury crisis, of course, which is the other major culprit, definite major culprit. But we put out a pretty good side today. OK, Colby didn't start. And when he came on, he didn't make a great deal of difference. Swift had a checkered game, I think is the phrase that they would use.
There were times when he just looked a little bit, not disinterested, just that his commitment in some of the second balls and 50-50s was measured, put it like that. Ali, poor Ali, occasionally does get past his man nowadays, and that's good. You can't expect to get past your man every time. But he took him on, as John Massino during the week said he wants Ali to take his man on.
If it's one-on-one, take him on. Ali did, and on a couple of occasions, he got decent crosses in. But he still looked as though he was perfectly happy not to be given the ball unless it was in a lot of room, sufficient room for him to turn, not get clattered and take one man on. That's what he wanted. And you don't get that very often in the championship.
So there were plenty of times when he wasn't quite up to the pace. Segacic huffed and puffed but didn't actually manage to produce anything and Brown got into a couple of decent situations didn't he he had a couple of half chances or quarter chances perhaps good on him for doing that but we need them to go in we need them to hit the back of the net
Everybody was shooting from 28 yards along the deck. Well, no, there was the one that went in almost off the bar. Beautifully taken goal, it has to be said. But a lot of their shooting was speculative and the ball took a tiny deflection. There's nothing you can do if you're a defender or a keeper if the ball takes a slight deflection. It's just, you know, rock, paper, scissors.
or the equivalent of rock, paper, scissors. It's just a matter of luck. It's the roll of the dice, isn't it? It's what the Americans call a crapshoot. But they were, I'm not going to milk that metaphor and say that their shots were crap, because they weren't. They were along the deck, they were fast, they fizzed. And we had plenty of... Now, I've just remembered. I don't take notes.
I've just remembered something I wanted to share with you. I'm sure you thought this yourself. Didn't we make their keeper look good? Didn't we give their keeper lots of opportunities to go diving and making saves that made him, you know, made him look spectacular?
He...
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