For some of the travelling faithful who made the journey to Portsmouth on Saturday, an away win would have been greeted with the same ecstatic delight as if they had found a cafe serving up a full English breakfast, as well as an oasis, on a long trek through a dry desert.

Prior to kick-off I had expected us to take at least a point from this fixture if we could produce anything like our home performances in our wins against Leicester and Ipswich.

However, we failed to take anything back home from the South Coast following this dissappointing 1-0 loss. The result also meant that we are still without a Saturday win on our travels since our 2-1 victory at Plymouth in March 2024.

We began quite brightly playing some decent passing football and moved the ball well without really creating any clear-cut chances.

North End’s Daniel Iversen (left) and Ben Whiteman applaud the fans at the final whistle (photo: Ian Cook/CameraSport)

placeholder image — North End’s Daniel Iversen (left) and Ben Whiteman applaud the fans at the final whistle (photo: Ian Cook/CameraSport)

I was starting to feel that maybe this might be our day until slowly but surely the home side – backed by an enthusiastic crowd – began to get a foothold in the game. By the middle of the half I thought that they had become the more dominant side.

Daniel Iversen had another fine game in our goal and dealt with everything the home side could throw at him but was eventually beaten four minutes before the interval when, shortly after making another good save with his body at his near post, Pompey took the lead when the Great Dane was wrong footed by a shot from the edge of the area, which unfortunately deflected past him.

In the second half we did try to claw our way back into the game by playing the ball more in our opponents’ half than we had done in the first.

We looked more of an attacking threat when Lewis Dobbin replaced Daniel Jebbison but too many of our crosses were either overhit high in the air past the back post, or instead of finding a white shirt were fired in low to the feet of the grateful Portsmouth defenders.

I felt we badly missed injured striker Milutin Osmajic as in all honesty I cannot recall the home keeper being called into action for anything which I personally wouldn't classify as more than routine.

With the transfer window closing on Monday, I cannot see any more than one extra body being added to our squad so it will be a case of running with what we have got now until January. In my opinion the transfer window should be abolished as there are no restrictions on people changing their employers if they so wish in any other industry than football but as the saying goes “it is what it is.”

After such a big turnaround of personnel this summer I do not expect us to win every game so, despite this loss, I firmly believe that when all of our many newcomers have fully bedded in and been given more time to gel together, we can definitely achieve a much higher-place finish than last season.