Sheffield United v Portsmouth
Feb. 9th, 2025 05:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rifleman_lincolnIt was back to winning ways as the Blades somehow took three points from a game that the visitors dominated for much of the contest. Portsmouth have not won at Bramall Lane since November 1955, 25 contests in all! However, I thought we were a bit "second best " in this game and even Chris Wilder said that we "got away with one".
The weather wasn't brilliant – a very chilly wind but also that drizzly rain that blows straight at you! Still, this is England!
Portsmouth started strongly and were keeping the Blades' defence on their toes with mobility and pressing. They could have gone two up with one hitting the bar and Michael Cooper tipping another ball over the top and all the ball seemed to be with them.
On 15 minutes the game stopped and there was a lovely minute's applause from everyone around the ground, including both sets of players and supporters, all the officials and coaching staff, in tribute to Harvey Willgoose, aged 15, who was fatally stabbed at his school in Sheffield during the week. He was a very keen Blades' supporter and before the match there'd been a march from the Town Hall to Bramall Lane. A flag was passed around the ground and it was lovely to see everyone paying their respects.
Then the game re-started and on 24 minutes, Ben Brereton Diaz put in a lovely cross towards Gus Hamer who cut inside Portsmouth's defence and curled a lovely effort into the far corner.
Portsmouth responded almost immediately when Anel Ahmedhodzic was caught napping allowing Connor Ogilvie to equalise.
For the second half, I think we were all hoping Chris Wilder would change the shape as we were getting really run through, but the same team came out, without very much idea of how to get back control of the game and it all became a bit one-sided with our tactics not very clear. But then even Wilder had seen enough and made a triple substitution so we were finally able to mount a good attack.
Rhian Brewster was looking very lively yesterday and suddenly out of nowhere he ran down the left side and sent over a superb cross which Jesurun Rak Sakyi finished very smartly.
The celebrations seemed to be as much relief as delight!
With 5 minutes of added time, the Blades very nearly scored again as Rhian Brewster was one-on-one with the Portsmouth goalkeeper and sent the ball goalwards. It smashed against the bar – sometimes with these shots the ball bounces back into the net and sometimes it doesn't . . . this was one of the latter!
An odd shape and new signings not quite "there" yet meant it was a bit of a mess, but a win's a win.
And a shout-out to the Portsmouth supporters – they'd come a long way, packed the stand and never stopped singing, even when losing. Well done!
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Date: 2025-02-09 06:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-02-09 09:39 pm (UTC)