Bristol City 3-0 Pompey: Neil Allen's post-match verdict

The News' chief sports writer, Neil Allen, shares his thoughts on Pompey's 3-0 defeat at Bristol City

Transcript

00:00Hi, greetings from the press room at Bristol City. I thought I'd do a verdict really

00:06after the debacle we saw, especially the first half where Pompey lost 3-0 at Bristol City.

00:13What can you say about that? Well, first of all, a lot of people were talking about John

00:16Messina's team selection. Quite rightly so, people are questioning that at the start of

00:20the game. When you've got your top scorer Callum Lange on the bench, you've got Josh

00:25Murphy, one of the best performers of the season, on the bench. You've got Zach Swanson,

00:30man of the match, on the bench. And you've got Freddie Potts, who's one of the key central

00:35midfielders Pompey have, or one of the few central midfielders Pompey have, and they're

00:40on the bench. And instead, Sammy Saverio's first game since September. Paddy Lane's barely

00:45started recently. Owen Moxon's second start in the Championship. And naturally, people

00:52are concerned going into the game that Pompey were going to lose. And as it's proven, no

00:56one's surprised there. If anything, it shows you the squad desperately need strength and

01:01the bench is not strong enough. We know that. We've said it time and time again for the

01:05majority of the season, and that was today. And I know John Messina's had a bit of criticism

01:10over his selection. Well, I can actually understand why he's done it, because he's relied on the

01:16same players. You need to rotate your squad over this festive period. But the squad isn't

01:20good enough to rotate. And that's a frustrating thing. And that's what the transfer window

01:24needs to sort out. They need to get players who can come into the first team, who can

01:28start in the first team, who are capable of performing at Championship level. And at the

01:32moment, they struggle. They struggle to make changes in games, off the bench and improve

01:37it. Most of the time, Pompey in games, they don't improve in games because they haven't

01:40got the quality coming onto the pitch at this level. And that's a frustrating thing today.

01:45So I get why he's done that, because you can't have Calum Lang playing every minute.

01:53You can't have Josh Murphy playing every minute. They have huge key players for Pompey. They

01:58have to be looked after, particularly in this period of time. You can't get them injured.

02:02There's too many injuries. But it just exposes the weakness of the bench, of the fringe players

02:08coming in. And that's a concern. So here we are, Pompey back in the relegation zone to

02:14end 2024. Hugely frustrating. But again, it's over to the owners, to Ananti, Rich Hughes,

02:22to sort this out in January. Rich Hughes needs money, needs the ability to bring in better

02:28players that can play at this level and keep Pompey up. We know it's essential. We've said

02:32it time and time again. We all said it. Come on. Everyone knows it's obvious. He needs

02:38better squad. Not a bigger squad. This squad's quite big, really. There's two players who

02:42can't even get into it. He just needs a better quality squad, better quality bench, better

02:47first team players to stay up. At the moment, Marlon Pack had a really poor first off. He's

02:53not a centre half. He's learning the role. So again, need a centre half. So yeah, really

02:59frustrating today. Really frustrating. And it just shows you what we all knew. The bench,

03:05the squad is not good enough to stay in the Championship. First eleven's not too bad to

03:09be fair. We've seen Pompey have some very good results. But they can't play every minute

03:12of every game. And that's the issue. Over to January, over to Ananti, over to Michael

03:18Eisner, over to Rich Hughes. Thank you.