Chapter 1: What were the key moments in the Watford vs. Pompey match?
Watford won, Pompey won. Final whistle's just gone. It's quarter to ten. And I feel, if you cast your mind back to how you felt during the last ten minutes as we were holding out for that point, I feel pretty emotional, as you did, as you probably still do, maybe even if you're listening to this a day or more later, because that means that the last two games...
four points really hard one ground out we were professional and we were committed there were some people running elbows pumping flat out in the 90th 92nd 95th minute people had been on the pitch the whole of the game just working like crazy for that one point, and we got it. And we more than deserved it, I thought. Watford looked good in certain respects.
Chapter 2: How did the players show commitment during the game?
They were a little bit better than us, but we deserved our point. In fact, it was one of those one-all draws where somehow, you know, you kind of felt that we deserved two points, not that two points are ever available. But where we shaded it, really, was desire. We wanted it more than they did.
I mean, how many times have we come away from games at Fratton Park and elsewhere and said that the other team got something which they didn't deserve, but they wanted it more than we did? And this is a very tangible statement.
facet in football and we wanted it more than they did we had some heroes out there some people who outdid their actual footballing ability contributions to the game and I'm particularly impressed and I'm going to have to mention and I know you want me to because you would with Adams what I find what an acquisition He really is. He takes control of the game.
He wants to show the people who decided to let him go. He wants to show the people who didn't, who throughout his career didn't quite rate him as highly as he believes he deserves. All these psychological facets come into a player's when they've been around the block a few times. People who have something to prove can be quite formidable.
And I suspect that there's an element of that in the way he goes about the game. But on top of that, he's also a supreme professional. And you could say exactly the same, exactly the same, but in a different way about good old Conor Ogilvie. Is there anything left to say in praise of Connor Ogilvie that hasn't been said a hundred times over the last two or three years?
I've heard it whispered that John Messina has said that as long as he's fit, Connor Ogilvie is his first pick on the team sheet. And I think today playing out of position where he's played a few times for us when we were in dire straits for lack of a number five last season and played perfectly well.
You know, he looks like he's been playing in the middle of the back four in his entire distinguished career. and proud career but he hasn't he's a left back and part of the reason we love him as a left back is because because of the way he gets forward which he hasn't got the license to do when he's a central defender because his main job as a central defender is to do what he did
get in the way of everything they tried to do and get his head to the ball first. He didn't lose an aerial 50-50 that I noticed. Certainly, if anybody got to the ball before him, he was so much there on them, on them, wearing them, wearing them like a well-fitting shirt. He was wearing them and there was nothing they could do because Ogilvy was up and about them.
Plenty of people had tremendous games. When Ali came off, he got a really warm round of applause because of his all-round contribution. Not just his contribution to the goal, because although the assist, and what a wonderful finish that was by Segecic, because the assist will quite rightly go to Conor Chaplin for a superb ball into Segecic, just where he wanted it.
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Chapter 3: Who were the standout players for Pompey in this match?
And he did what goalkeepers have to do. And he did. He dropped his six foot five inch frame on the ball. with no regard for his own safety, because boots were flying. Well, anyway, there was a pair of Watford boots in and around him as he fell on the ball or tried to fall on the ball, and it didn't quite work.
It squirted, just as it had squirted out of his hands at a height of nine feet above the pitch when he tried to catch it. One commentator said he should have punched it. OK, I'm afraid in England, goalkeepers are always criticised when they punch it, unless they manage to punch it 40 yards up the pitch, which doesn't happen.
So it's a bit rich, frankly, coming from some so-called experts when they say maybe he should have punched it. He went to catch it. He was right to try and catch it. He got a little knock, a small knock in the air. He spilled, it slipped through his fingers. He then tried to drop on it and got so close.
He was almost fouled as he tried to gather the ball, but he didn't actually gather the ball, didn't get possession, so it wasn't a free kick. And the Watford fellow who scored the goal, he took it rather well because he had to thread it, as I recall, through about four or five white shirts, and he did that successfully.
And I suppose if you were a neutral, you'd say that Watford didn't deserve to be denied in that moment because they had put on a pretty good show. And they are clearly promotion contenders. But we were as good as them. We were as good as them, especially considering we were at their gaff. We out-sang them.
How sad are the Watford fans that when they scored within two minutes, they were chanting that old-fashioned chant, that redundant chant, which is nevertheless still annoying about the You're Not Singing Anymore chant. It's pathetic. Do we now have a new Ali chant? I couldn't quite get the words.
But when he came off, it was said that the song was being sung by the Pompey fans who made that journey. And we're speaking now. It's 10 o'clock in the evening. The players haven't even started to dry their hair. And there are Pompey fans climbing into cars and vans and
And buses, and they are on their way back down to the south coast, which is going to take them all the way around a flooded M25, I'm thinking. I was watching the racing from Lingfield this afternoon, and the commentator said we had to come around the M25, and it was a lake. That's as much rain as we've seen in the south of England for a very long time.
I would imagine there were moments when the game's very viability was under question, but it went ahead. The ref, by the way, did a good job, which is always nice to be able to say. Kept the play moving. There were a number of occasions when I felt we should have been given a foul and he let play go on. But there were also a number of occasions when I felt that we had fouled.
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