Portsmouth reignite the Cup fear factor
A game that produced very little for half an hour suddenly woke up and by the final whistle Portsmouth’s rousing performance had seen off Championship relegation candidates Barnsley.
Portsmouth are already one match from Wembley in the EFL Trophy and while few would expect the 2008 winners and 2010 finalists to reach the national stadium again in this competition, stranger things have happened. And even now that the home side languish in League One, a trip to Fratton Park in the fifth round is something few teams would relish.
“We want to do well in every competition, try to avoid injuries and build momentum to give our supporters faith we can have a big end to the season,” manager Kenny Jackett said.
Barnsley, only nine league places above Portsmouth, could not match the home side’s resolve in the second half and face an uphill battle to avoid relegation.
The early stages were marked mainly by unforced errors. Typical was an attempted clearance by Barnsley goalkeeper Brad Collins that nearly ended up in the net as the ball rebounded off home forward John Marquis.
Portsmouth’s opener came after 37 minutes with the first decent bit of football. Steve Seddon’s pass up the left wing found Andy Cannon, whose turn created space for Ben Close. His effort from 20 yards gave Collins no chance.
Collins impressed in the dying seconds of the first half as he saved well from Ronan Curtis’s shot on the turn at the expense of a corner. But it was in vain as Seddon’s flag kick found the head of Curtis and Marquis turned the ball in from point-blank range to score his fourth goal in five games.
Barnsley captain Cauley Woodrow halved the arrears on the hour with his tenth goal of the season, a super strike from 25 yards, and it might have been 2-2 had Jacob Brown got his shot on target from barely 10 yards out. Instead it was 3-1 to Portsmouth as top scorer
Curtis charged on to a long clearance by goalkeeper Alex Bass to roll the ball past Collins for his 12th goal of the season.
Conor Chaplin, Barnsley’s former Portsmouth striker, had two tries at reminding the Fratton faithful what he could do, but his first shot was blocked by Christian Burgess and his second by Bass. And Burgess headed in from another corner by Seddon after 76 minutes to make it 4-1, before Chaplin finally found a way past Bass.
“We had the right attitude,” Jackett said. “I felt there would be goals in the game and keeping a clean sheet would be tough, but that we could create chances going the other way and take the game to the opposition.”