WIGAN A 0 Portsmouth 0:ROBERTO MARTINEZ would like his team to start being more ruthless, although they are running out of games in which to try. Judging by the lamest of performances against a patched-up Portsmouth team only interested in keeping up appearances, Wigan have not got it in them in any case.
A win here against a positive though mostly impotent Pompey would have put seven points between Wigan and the relegation positions and more or less prompted Hull City and Burnley to abandon hope. As it is, Wigan can still be caught, and as several of their fans pointed out, playing like this they deserve to be. Martinez will be worried about his chairman’s reputation for ruthlessness.
Portsmouth, to quote the former manager they vanquished at Wembley on Sunday, really might be down to the bare bones. There were eight changes to the team that started the FA Cup semi-final, Tommy Smith played in a protective mask and Avram Grant could name only four substitutes.
Even so there was not much to choose between the sides in a dire first half. Wigan enjoyed most of the possession and gave much of it away in the course of building some extremely laboured attacks; Portsmouth just tried to break out when they could and still managed to look more like scoring.
James McCarthy brought the first save of the game from Jamie Ashdown with a crisp shot from the edge of the area, yet it was about the only first-half occasion when Wigan produced an end result, let alone one on target.
Portsmouth’s crossing brought better chances, and though Matt Ritchie’s header was comically wide when he had more space than he probably realised after Smith found him from the right, he was much closer with a far post effort from Anthony Vanden Borre’s run down the same wing.
Ashdown saved twice from Jason Scotland before the interval, though both shots were straight at him.
Chris Kirkland had to work harder to get down to a Smith effort on the stroke of half-time, though there was still time for Hugo Rodallega and Paul Scharner to put reasonable opportunities well over the bar in the couple of minutes added on.
Ruthless it was not, and neither, to the consternation of the home crowd, did Wigan look remotely like a team fighting for survival.
Portsmouth had a good chance at the start of the second half, when Smith headed narrowly over from a corner, before Scharner missed the best chance of the lot after 55 minutes, lazily wafting another shot over the bar.
WIGAN ATHLETIC: Kirkland, Melchiot, Gohouri, Bramble, Figueroa, Diame, Scharner (Moreno 56), McCarthy, N’Zogbia, Scotland (Moses 88), Rodallega. Subs not used: Stojkovic, Watson, Gomez, Sinclair, Boyce. Booked: Bramble, Scotland.
PORTSMOUTH: Ashdown, Vanden Borre, Rocha (Sowah 46), Wilson, Ward, Diop, Basinas, Brown, Smith, Utaka, Ritchie (Piquionne 79). Subs not used: Yebda, Pack. Booked: Vanden Borre.
Referee: Mike Dean (England).
