Reflecting on Barnsley win

Pompey produced a 'great response' to losing the manager on Friday with a 2-0 win, albeit far from convincing at times, over Barnsley yesterday.

Guy Whittingham, as he told sky sports, thought it was a 'good positive performance' that brought 'big relief' to everyone: 'it's a great response from our players because it's obviously not easy when your manager leaves on a Friday morning and you've got a game on Saturday but I thought our players reacted very well to it.

'It was a good positive performance and we got the win, which is the big relief to us.'

At times it was positive but I could not say it was all the way through, then again few clubs are able to sustain a performance for the 90 are they?

As has so often happened this season, despite some moments in the 1st half, the 2nd half showing was much better: 'we've looked at the stats before and we've been a second-half team all the time, so we reminded them of that and reminded them of what they did well in the first half and they went out and did the same thing again.

'They had a bright start to the second half and that's what gave us the footing to go on and win the game.'

Like I say the 1st half 'had its moments' but all in all it was, I think as Tony said to me at one point, end to end rubbish - I think that those were the words he said?

The organisation, especially of the forward players, was poor again in that 1st half - that was no different from recent times, nor was the fact that the 2nd half was our better half.

Lets face it things were not going to change drastically overnight, and unless we do bring in a new man - and do not appoint from within - then the style of play is hardly going to change much, as it was not likely to, as these coaches worked under the old manager so 'probably' think along the same lines as him anyway.

Most important thing was that we won, we certainly needed that win!

Now we wait and see what the coming days bring and what fresh ideas a new manager can bring to turn our fortunes around and guide us to that midtable position that I would suggest the majority of us would be content with and would have targeted this season.

In the meantime I would think that Whittingham and Stuart Gray will be in charge for Ipswich on Tuesday, a game that I would bite your arm off at the offer of a point at the moment - but I hope we show some intent as anything is possible...

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