Blackburn Rovers 0 Portsmouth 1:It is not often a Mark Hughes side is bullied out of a game, but Portsmouth were too strong for Blackburn Rovers in every department. If the home side's lack of ideas when faced with a five-man midfield was disconcerting, losing the physical battle was even more so, and only a solid performance from the goalkeeper Brad Friedel prevented their first Premier League defeat of the season from being severely embarrassing.

Yet Rovers had begun the game with real purpose, and were almost rewarded as early as the fifth minute. Sol Campbell's loose pass was picked up by David Bentley, and the England midfielder made good ground down the right before working a neat one-two with Roque Santa Cruz. The striker turned quickly, ran into the area and rose above Sylvain Distin to head Bentley's subsequent cross against the top of David James' left-hand post.

They had another good chance soon afterwards, Morten Gamst Pedersen cleverly prodding another Bentley cross to the feet of Benni McCarthy, only for the South African forward to sidefoot high and wide.

Portsmouth, with Nwankwo Kanu as the only outlet up front, were largely pinned in their half, but as the impressive midfield quintet began to break up the Rovers attacks in front of their back four, the visitors started to ask some questions of their own.

Without their injured captain and centre-half, Ryan Nelsen, Rovers' defensive organisation, or at least communication, was certainly at fault when John Utaka's long, high cross from the right found Kanu completely on his own in the Rovers penalty area. He had more time than he knew what to do with, but having got down to his right to scoop the striker's header off the line, Friedel excelled himself by getting up to block the Nigerian's attempt to bury the rebound.

The forward's redemption was not long coming. Barely a minute later he was first to react when Sulley Muntari got his head to Distin's long ball, controlling the flick-on and shrugging off the attempted challenge of Christopher Samba before dribbling around Friedel as the American came out to narrow the angle. Samba got back to try to cover on the line, but Kanu slid the ball calmly past him.