Portsmouth v Luton Town 2/1

[Hatter86]

Confirmed on Twitter by McGeehan himself that it's a leg break. Gutted for him, however he's the type of character to come back stronger from this. Incidentally no issues with the challenge that caused it, full blooded 50/50 from both players. Just one of those things.

I was more impressed with Pompey at our place than I was today. I think they've got the strongest midfield in the league with some great options on the bench. Potentially need a bit more quality in the final third but I understand Chaplon hasn't been playing too much recently.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Absolutely horrendous afternoon for us. McGeehan likely to be out until next season you would think which means not only do we lose the 10+ goals he'd have scored in the second half of this season, we also won't be getting a big cash injection in the summer from his inevitable sale. Hylton possibly being injured too means we may have just lost something like 25 out of our 34 goals this season in a single stroke. And all the teams around us winning (obviously including Pompey!) to really add insult to those injuries. What a day!

 

[Kenneth E End]

Hearing that McGeehan spat at Pompey fans. If that's true, he deserves all the abuse he got.

Seriously Don. He's on a bloody stretcher, on his way to a bloody ambulance with a fucking broken leg.

I've seen some idiocy on this forum, but this takes the biscuit.

 

[Chief Rocka]

Seriously Don. He's on a bloody stretcher, on his way to a bloody ambulance with a fucking broken leg.

Must've been a good shot!

 

[Kenneth E End]

Right, I've finally managed to get through my front door. For a destination that doesn't seem too far away, it feels a long way away on that train!

Truly devastating to lose Cameron; undoubtedly the best young player in the division. How do you go and replace a 15+ goal a season midfielder? Virtually impossible without vastly out-spending everyone else. To lose Danny Hylton in the same game is totally unthinkable. In hindsight, it may have been worth him getting a silly booking just to get the 2 game suspension off his back. As days go, this is a pretty bad one. We now have to sign 3 players in this window - possibly 2 midfielders and another striker.

The reaction of the Portsmouth supporters in the Fratton End was nothing short of disgusting and I hope all that participated in it are embarrassed and ashamed of themselves. I sometimes lose faith in humanity and that reaffirmed it. Some people are worth remembering that football is just a game, played by human beings and its not life and death.

I like Portsmouth as a club and I think they are a true traditional club with great support, but that really grated me.

The game itself we never really got into and we never seemed like we were ever going to score. Portsmouth were well worth the win.

Although there were a catalogue of errors in the run up for the goal we conceded, I'm going to moan at Scott Cuthbert. He had one job to do all day - and that was to mark Christian Burgess at set pieces; the obvious and most dangerous vocal point of Portsmouth's set plays, as he was in the first game - someone who I admire as a centre half at this level. All he had to do was stick on him, as he did with Akinde. He went to sleep for a couple of seconds; thought he'd leave the marking to someone else and bob's your uncle, he's in and scores.

 

[Hatter86]

Personally I think Walton was more at fault. Came for it and got nowhere near. I'd have to see the highlights though.

 

[That Fat Centre Half]

Having seen the highlights I think you have to say Walton is far more at fault than Cuthbert!

 

[Don Tonberry]

Seriously Don. He's on a bloody stretcher, on his way to a bloody ambulance with a fucking broken leg.

I've seen some idiocy on this forum, but this takes the biscuit.

He shouldn't be spitting at people, IF he did then it's understandable why he'd be getting even more abuse. However, I've not seen anything confirming it and he understandably looked angry when he went off and some of our fans were giving him stick, although his reaction to our medical staff certainly didn't help his cause.

Plenty of Pompey fans have wished him well since his tweet in hospital and no genuine football fan will want any player to be out for that long, especially as it was a 50/50 challenge with no malice intended. You're certainly going to miss him and Luton's hopes of finishing in the top three look very slim now.

 

[Kenneth E End]

He shouldn't be spitting at people, IF he did then it's understandable why he'd be getting even more abuse.

Are you actually for real?

 

[Bucket_]

Sorry Don but I agree with Kenneth here. The lad likely knew he'd just broken his leg, he would hardly be thinking straight. Plenty of people do stupid things under pressure like that. Doesn't excuse or justify the abuse.

 

[That Fat Centre Half]

As far as I can see the whole spitting thing is just an accusation from a Pompey fan trying to justify booing a player with a broken leg and hasn't had any confirmation anywhere. Even if he did, I don't think abusing him for 10 odd minutes is justifiable (especially as he was likely just reacting to thousands of people abusing him having just suffered a very severe injury and therefore not thinking straight)

It does seem he was getting quite irate at the medical team who were taking a long time getting the right equipment etc though. Not great that he is getting pissed off at people trying to help him but given that he is a young lad having likely his first experience of a serious injury perhaps understandable. An injury like that he may very well have been in shock.

 

[Bucket_]

Agree. If this had happened to a Pompey player we'd be irate. It's bollocks to try and justify it imo.

 

[Don Tonberry]

Are you actually for real?

Yes. I'm not condoning it at all, but it's totally understandable that certain supporters would react that way if an opposition player spat at them. Reminds me of the El-Hadji Diouf incident years ago. I'm not excusing it or justifying it, but I'm saying it's understandable simply because that's just how some football fans are. That if, of course, if those "reports" are accurate, which is doubtful.

I, amongst many other Pompey fans, wish him a speedy recovery.

 

[Bucket_]

It's a shame, because it's overshadowed what I thought was a fantastic game.

 

[Don Tonberry]

It's a shame, because it's overshadowed what I thought was a fantastic game.

Fantastic game? You sure? The second half saw my nerves being shredded and the result ended up being one of the ugliest wins we'll have all season. Give me a comfortable 3-0 win over Crawley over that again any day!

Despite how huge that win was for us, we still can't afford to lose to Doncaster on Thursday.

 

[Bucket_]

Fantastic game? You sure? The second half saw my nerves being shredded and the result ended up being one of the ugliest wins we'll have all season. Give me a comfortable 3-0 win over Crawley over that again any day!

Despite how huge that win was for us, we still can't afford to lose to Doncaster on Thursday.

Ok maybe not *fantastic*, especially in quality of football, obviously. My nerves were shot too, but both teams went at it hard, the atmosphere was (mostly) pretty good, decent away crowd, lots of drama. I guess what I'm trying to say is it made a huge change from some of the dire home games we've seen in the past season or two.

Yep Doncaster is huge. Not all that confident about getting a result, a draw would be fine with me.

 

[Don Tonberry]

Ok maybe not *fantastic*, especially in quality of football, obviously. My nerves were shot too, but both teams went at it hard, the atmosphere was (mostly) pretty good, decent away crowd, lots of drama. I guess what I'm trying to say is it made a huge change from some of the dire home games we've seen in the past season or two.

Yep Doncaster is huge. Not all that confident about getting a result, a draw would be fine with me.

Don't get me wrong, I'd rather watch today's game than the tedium that was the Hartlepool match but it was annoying to see us gift Luton so much possession in the second half. Roberts was dreadful once again. Thankfully, Plymouth are the only "decent" team left to come to Fratton Park - we should be looking to beat everyone else so long as Cook can find a formula to do so. Chaplin needs to start some games at home if he's not going to be sold.

I'm confident we can get something from Doncaster simply because our away form has been so impressive since September. Thanks to Carlisle and Plymouth's results today, a draw wouldn't be a bad result up there.

 

[K-Win]

My two-penneth. It seemed fairly obvious to me that McGeehan was badly injured and I couldn't understand our fans' reaction. The medical team then tried to stretcher him off before stabilising the leg with a splint which understandably provoked a reaction from the lad trying not to make a bad situation worse. The ref, in his wisdom, then decided to brandish a card at McGeehan which led to most fans thinking he was feigning injury and the boos and whistles increased.
All very unsavoury and I can understand Jones reaction.
I've been going to Fratton for many years and I can't ever recall a seriously injured player being treated like that - here's hoping it's a one-off not helped by a nob of a referee.
Game-wise, we deserved the half-time lead but the second half was pretty even and wouldn't have had too many complaints if Luton had equalised.

 

[Super_horns]

I read he was booked for "dissent"!

Some refs really don't help themselves do they...

 

[Bar Carousel]

From my take of the incident in the North Stand, I was one of many initially jeering him (which i now regret).

At first it appeared that he was feigning it. He didn't appear to be in pain, but was acting quite aggressively to everyone around including the medical staff. Naturally this will incense a crowd, especially at a place like ours. Even on the stretcher he was displaying aggression and not pain which is why he continued to take stick from the crowd.

Of course, anyone who has just broken their leg should be able to react in any way they want. But in the heat of the moment at a football match, dishing out aggression only leads to one reaction from a crowd, and that's to receive the same hostility back, particularly when it didn't visibly appear that the player was seriously injured.

Here's wishing him a speedy recovery, and like many Pompey fans, an apology to him and Luton if a heat of the moment reaction from our lot has left a sour taste in the mouth.

As for the game, it was scrappy. As poor as Luton were in the first half, they had a right go in the second and could quite easily have taken a point if not three had chances gone their way. We could yet be facing you again in May.

I enjoyed the "how shit must you be, time wasting at home" chant. I responded with "how shit must you be, we're winning at home" but I don't think you could probably hear me.

All in all, a poor game that'll last long in the memory for all the wrong reasons.

 

[BelizeHatter]

Bad day all round for us. Other results make it sting even more too. Just maybe it will be the catalyst to spark a real cohesion and storm back. In all honesty I think we all knew we weren't really good enough and maybe too young and naive on and off the pitch. I hope we stay focused and try and become consistent and the fans stick behind the boys. Aim for the playoffs and see what happens with one eye on next season

 

[Bosox]

Finally a decent reaction from Portsmouth:

Cameron McGeehan: Paul Cook sorry for Portsmouth fans reaction to leg break

"It was a moment I don't think our fans realised the extent of the boy's injury. By the time they had, it was obviously too late and we've let ourselves down, there's no issue about that.

"We feel everything as a club and, as a club, we don't want to be letting ourselves down. We want people to speak about us really well.

"All we can do is apologise for our behaviour in that moment and wish Cameron a speedy recovery."

As unbelievable as the initial reaction was the subsequent attempts by Portsmouth fans online to deny responsibility and to make up smear stories about McGeehan to try and excuse the behaviour has arguably been even worse. Good to see the manager finally come out and tell the fans that they are embarrassing the club.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Saw the incident for the first time on Sky Sports News earlier today - the idea that he was booked for spitting at Pompey fans was shown to be ludicrous, as McGeehan was sat in the middle of the pitch when he was booked. From the TV pictures it looked to be very clearly a reaction to McGeehan punching the ground in frustration.

To be honest, the Pompey fans booing etc was obviously out of order and some of the comments post-match have been silly, but I wish everyone would stop going on about it now, football fans in being mean shocker, who cares really? We're hardly angels let's face it.

The moron ref is the one most at fault and that's where the focus should be - by booking McGeehan he encourages the fans to think there isn't anything serious about his injury. What an absolute clown, I'm glad the national (and even international) media have picked up on his ludicrous decision.

 

[That Fat Centre Half]

Completely agree with you there JD, the fact of the matter is i'm not sure our fans would have reacted any differently because we to have some right morons who support us, especially if they were legitimised in their abuse by someone being booked.

The actions of the referee do however need to be heavily scrutinised, more than some admittedly pathetic chanting. This is a person who is supposed to be the authority out there on the pitch, charged with protecting players and he thinks its acceptable to book someone with a severe injury and is fairly clearly distraught at what is happening, incredibly concerning that a referee of a professional game is so completely lacking in common sense.