Defensive reshuffle is no excuse for mauling, admits captain Naylor
Skipper accepts performance wasn’t good enough in 4-1 defeat against Accrington as unbeaten run came to a grinding halt. NEIL ALLEN reports...
TOM Naylor is adamant there can be no excuses for Pompey’s Accrington Stanley mauling.
Kenny Jackett’s side were forced to field an entire new back four for Saturday’s trip to the League One strugglers.
Injury and unavailability robbed them of Brandon Haunstrup, Christian Burgess, Oli Hawkins and Lee Brown at the Crown Ground.
In their absence, the makeshift defence were on the receiving end of an embarrassing 4-1 defeat.
And Naylor, who dropped back to centre-half from his usual midfield slot, refused to use the necessity of a defensive overhaul as the reason for the awful outcome.
He said: ‘There should be no excuses.
‘There were a lot of changes to be fair. We changed the whole back four which started against Peterborough (the previous weekend), but we have to deal with it.
‘We are professional players and have to stand up. We made a few changes, but have to cope.
‘This defence hasn’t played together all season, but we have to deal with things. I don’t think it was just the defence to be fair, it was all around the pitch.
‘We gave balls away, they counter-attacked us and scored four goals. It just isn’t good enough.
‘We didn’t deal with their players. We had to stick to our jobs, but had holes left, right and centre, and they picked us off. It was disappointing.
‘With Burgess suspended, we knew we had to change it, while Hawkins having a little one and his missus in hospital, Browny’s injured and Brandon as well.
‘We had to do something. We thought this was the best side we could put out.
‘We worked on it all week. The gaffer knew what the team was going to be, but we just didn’t turn up.’
Saturday’s loss represented a first in 11 matches for the Blues in all competitions.
It has been an impressive run which earned Jackett a Sky Bet Manager of the Month nomination for November.
Now Naylor is eyeing establishing another productive spell of results.
He added: ‘We have to take into consideration we had gone 10 matches unbeaten before this, We’ve done well in the last month or so.
‘Ipswich are next, we have to move on.’
Former Pompey youngster Conor Chaplin celebrated his first career hat-trick in Barnsley’s 5-3 Championship win against QPR on Saturday.
And there were plenty of congratulatory tweets, likes and retweets on social media from former Fratton Park colleagues and friends as they took delight in a major milestone for the popular ex-Blues striker.
Chaplin, who has now scored six goals in his past six Tykes outings, left PO4 in the summer of 2018 after finding game time difficult to come by under Kenny Jackett.
Signing for Coventry City, the Worthing-born ace left with a Pompey record of 25 goals in 122 appearances.
He never managed a hat-trick for his boyhood club, with doubles against Barnet (September 2015) and Leyton Orient (January 2017) the closest he came to taking home a Blues match ball.
The front man, whom the Fratton faithful labelled ‘one of our own’, has never forgotten his roots despite his exit.