Holland in nick of time to punish Pompey

KARL Robinson praised his team’s calmness – and quality – after spectacular long-range goals from Cameron Brannagan and Nathan Holland earned his team a dramatic win.

Pompey were reduced to ten men after only 16 minutes when Joe Morrell was dismissed for a high challenge on Brannagan. There were also 11 yellow cards, seven for Portsmouth.

Both managers felt the red card was harsh, and that George Hirst’s elbow on Elliott Moore a little later was more worthy of a straight red card. Hirst saw yellow.

Robinson said: “The first one of those incidents was a harsh red, to be honest. I thought the yellow they got after that was more of a red.

“I think it was a sensational performance from us. There were a lot of very aggressive tackles in the first few minutes, which set the tone.

“But I was very impressed with the calmness we all showed, both on the touchline and on the pitch. We showed patience and we’d had five or six gilt-edged chances before we got a second goal.”

Oxford made a dream start when Luke McNally met Billy Bodin’s sixth minute corner with a firm downward header past keeper Gavin Bazunu.

Pompey were level four minutes later with Ronan Curtis skilfully flicking the ball up to keep it in play and then crossing for Michael Jacobs to tap in.

But the visitors were dealt a blow when Morrell was shown a red card.

There was a 20-minute delay to the start of the second half after a medical emergency in the tunnel.

Pompey punished the U’s with a devastating counter-attack in the 51st minute, finished off by Curtis from Jacobs’ pass.

Brannagan smashed home an unstoppable angled drive nine minutes from time to make it 2-2. And in the seventh of 10 minutes of stoppage time, Holland struck again from distance to earn play-off chasing Oxford victory.

Cowley felt it was a harsh on his players.

He said: “We defended resolutely, had a good shape to us and we got ourselves into a good position in the game. The way we were defending, it was going to take a brilliant goal to peg us back, and unfortunately for us they scored two.”