Wanderers 3

PORTSMOUTH 1 WANDERERS don't need a half-term report to tell them they could do better. Fourteen points adrift of Sunderland, they have a fair idea they won't finish top of the class this time but they are still good enough to pass the promotion test.

They know that only a plague of biblical proportions will prevent Peter Reid's runaway leaders taking one of the two automatic places but they have as good a chance as any of claiming the runners-up spot.

For all the trials and tribulations of the first half of the season, they have shown they have both the talent and the character to succeed.

Their ability has never been questioned; as an attacking force they're as good as anyone and they've recently got their defensive act together. Now, after showing patience, discipline and determination to push poor Pompey even deeper into the mire, they've shown they have the mental toughness too.

In the end it was a deserved and comfortable victory - more comfortable than the scoreline suggests, considering the balance of play and the chances created. But only because they refused to allow frustration to get the better of them as they spent three-quarters of the game trying everything they could to cancel out Sammy Igoe's first-minute stunner.

Then the in-form, hard-working and increasingly reliable Bob Taylor stepped in to turn the game in the space of eight crucial minutes. Super Bob took his season's total into double figures, netting his fifth in six games with a well-placed header to make the most of a delightful Ricardo Gardner cross. Then he fought like fury to win a lost cause that gave Per Frandsen a thoroughly deserved, if disputed, second.

To a man Wanderers admitted they hadn't played well, a concession that made this expected victory over one of the division's strugglers all the more significant.

No team ever won a title or promotion without winning a game or two when they weren't at their best. Indeed, as Dean Holdsworth admitted after applying the gloss finish with a super strike six minutes from time: "We've played better and lost!"

Actually they've played a lot worse and it's a measure of the standard they are now setting themselves that they were so critical of their own performance - supporters, manager and players alike.

The faces of the players and the murmurings of the crowd at half-time summed up the concern.

Even Colin Todd had to admit things weren't going according to plan. "Coming and having all those bodies in midfield, they stifled us out of playing to our strengths," the Wanderers boss said with a backhanded compliment to the visitors.

Yet he'd seen his side carve out enough clear-cut chances in the first 45 minutes to have led by a distance.

Hard-working Pompey might have managed to knock Wanderers out of their most fluent stride, but their goal led a charmed life with Andy Petterson doing well to deny Taylor, Frandsen and Arnar Gunnlaugsson. Even when the Australian was beaten, Taylor's header came back off the bar and Andy Thomson managed to clear Gunnlaugsson's shot off the line. With the impressive Claus Jensen a squeak away from deflecting a Taylor shot inside the post and Gunnlaugsson's drive skimming the wrong side of the post after precise and penetrating work by Frandsen and Scott Sellars, even the ultra positive Todd was beginning to have doubts.

"Privately I was wondering whether it was going to be one of those games," the manager admitted.

"But I told the players at half time to be disciplined, patient and I felt if we could get the ball up to the front men quicker - missing out midfield at times - we could cause them problems.

"We also had to make sure we didn't leave ourselves open for a second goal because that would have killed us off."

Even then it took a couple of well-timed substitutions to turn the game, although a few eyebrows were raised and boos were heard when Holdsworth replaced Gunnlaugsson, who was still posing a threat, and Gardner was swopped for Sellars.

The end justified the means but Todd played down the suggestion they were "inspired" changes and was upset by the adverse reactions - on and off the field - to his decisions.

"It's part of the game," he explained. "I had to do something different. Sometimes it comes off and it came off for us on this occasion.

"But the players I have here are all very, very honest. People get taken off but they shouldn't be treated in the manner in which they are treated. They try their best and sometimes it doesn't come off. That disappoints them.

"But there's no disgrace about being brought off. We keep talking about needing a squad of players. We are all in it together and we all get the three points. You have to utilise those 14 players the best you can." Whether that squad of players will continue to feature Jon Newsome and/or Paul Warhurst will be decided by ongoing negotiations. There is no doubt that the loan pair have made a big impression and again on Saturday they played central roles in a defence which, collectively undone inside 30 seconds by Jeff Peron's cross and Igoe's crisp volley, gave hardly anything away.

Jimmy Phillips looked comfortable in the unaccustomed right back role in the absence of the suspended Neil Cox and the sick Gudni Bergsson while Mike Whitlow was solid on his recall on the left.

With Alan Ball using Steve Claridge as a lone striker following the enforced sale of top-scorer John Aloisi and crowding midfield with five busy bodies, Wanderers had to work hard with a high degree of accuracy to create openings. The fluency wasn't there but the desire was and it always looked like one goal would be enough to break Pompey.

But Ball, tormented by the consequences of financial troubles (Portsmouth are losing £8,000 a day and their chairman has just resigned!) thought a point was still on until Taylor winkled the ball from between Thomson's feet and left Frandsen with a chance he wasn't going to miss. "We deserved something but we didn't get it," the Farnworth-born Pompey boss complained bitterly, "and the ref had a big part to play in that.

"My lad took the ball out of Taylor's feet to clear it and Taylor took his legs. That's why he was on the floor."

Despite the reservations about their performance, Wanderers go into the Christmas games in good spirits, knowing they have been able to show strength of character when it mattered.

"We had a big shock when they scored in the first minute," Frandsen acknowledged, "and to be fair they crowded us and played well in midfield. "But we still created five or six good chances in the first half and knew we just had to keep going and be patient. In the end it was a very important win for us.

"We didn't play as well as we did against Bury in our last home game but know we are capable of playing well and this time we've shown we can fight and be patient. That's a good sign."

And if, as Ball suggests, they got the benefit of a dubious refereeing decision, Frandsen reckons a change in fortune is long overdue.

"I don't know what happened with the goal," he said, "Bob was fighting for the ball and I don't think anyone knew where it was. Then it just appeared in front of me.

"We just haven't been getting the luck this season, compared with two years ago when we had all the luck.

"Maybe that will change in the second half of the season."

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