Portsmouth at Burnley for first time in thirteen years

Yesterday at 01:50 PM

Portsmouth are our visitors tomorrow when they will be playing at Turf Moor against us for the first time since the 2011/12 season.

That game, played in December, saw them take all three points from a 1-0 win and bring to an end a run of three consecutive wins that had seen us move into the top half of the table for the first time in the season.

Their most recent games at Burnley have been good. On their last eight visits, they've beaten us five teams, including one League Cup game, and drawn the other three. We have to go back to February 1982 for our last home win against them. That game ended 3-0 with Steve Taylor, Micky Phelan and Derek Scott scoring our goals.

We go into tomorrow's game on the back of a morale boosting win at Leeds last week when we resumed after the international break. We'd endured a torrid two weeks prior to that as the transfer window went into its final days which left us hardly knowing which players we did and didn't have when we went to Sunderland before fielding a team of virtual unknowns in the local derby.

The spirit and desire on the pitch at Elland Road was all we could have asked for. The togetherness in a team will always be better if the results are good but it looked almost shot at last season with the results only part of the problems that saw us relegated.

One of our recent signings Josh Laurent is eager to get back on the Turf Moor pitch where he made his debut against Blackburn three weeks ago. “I'm looking forward to Saturday, I'm looking forward to being in front of the crowd again and most importantly, hopefully getting three points and giving them something to really celebrate and get behind us with,” he said. He added: “I've loved it. The last two weeks that I've been here, the training's probably been one of the toughest I've had but I wouldn't want it any other way. I've loved every second of it. The way we trained leading up to Leeds, I think we showed it on the pitch, how hard we've worked, how together we've been and the mentality of the group and that's come from the Gaffer and the boys that have already been here. I love being a part of this group."

Back home tomorrow and Scott Parker will have to make at least one change with Bashir Humphreys serving a one match suspension following his red card deep into stoppage time at Elland Road. He’d come in at right-back for the injured Connor Roberts, but Parker revealed today that Roberts is back in training and they would make a late decision on his availability, and they will do likewise for Lyle Foster who missed last week’s game with a virus.

Parker also confirmed that Aaron Ramsey is back in training although the midfielder remains some way from fitness but that there was no update on the other long term injury victims. He also mentioned the positive news that John Egan and Enock Agyei got minutes in the under-21 game last Monday.

With Josh Cullen and Foster back in the reckoning and Roberts likely to come back in, there is a bigger and stronger squad of players to choose from this week but after the most chaotic of starts to the season, we now have that settle squad.

As a reminder, the Burnley team at Leeds was: James Trafford, Bashir Humphreys, Joe Worrall, Maxime Estève, Lucas Pires, Josh Laurent, Josh Brownhill (Han-Noah Massengo 90+2), Luca Koleosho (Jeremy Sarmiento 64), Hannibal Mejbri (Josh Cullen 73), Jaidon Anthony, Zian Flemming (Andréas Hountondji 90+2). Subs not used: Václav Hladký, John Egan, CJ Egan-Riley, Enock Agyei, Jay Rodriguez.

Portsmouth won League One last season with 97 points, five ahead of runners-up Derby, but they've found life a little more difficult in the Championship so far and they arrive at Burnley in next to bottom place and still looking for their first win.

At home, they've drawn one and lost two of their three games. The draw came in the first of the three games, a goalless result against Luton, but they've since been beaten at Fratton Park by Sunderland (1-3) and West Brom (0-3). That's just the one home goal and that was a stoppage time own goal from Sunderland's Luke O'Nien.

Away from home it's been better both in terms of points and goals. They've drawn both of their away games to date at Leeds and Middlesbrough and by 3-3 and 2-2 scorelines. Elias Sørensen scored their first at Leeds which were followed by a Callum Lang brace, the second of them a stoppage time penalty that they thought had won them the game only for Leeds to level things three minutes later.

At Middlesbrough, Christian Saydee scored both their goals, twice giving them the lead and again missing out on a win due to a late goal when Tommy Conway scored a penalty in the ninetieth minute.

The two defeats, against Sunderland and West Brom have come in their last two games and their manager John Mousinho has been quick to point out that they've come against the teams currently in the top two places.

He said this week: "When you're searching for a win, it can be tempting to do things that you don't necessarily believe in, but we're sticking to our principles and the way we want to play. We're certainly not feeling desperate. We do know that there's still a huge amount of improvement needed from us and are realistic about that. We're feeling positive about the way things are going though and feel there's a huge amount to come from this squad."

Portsmouth signed central defender Ibane Bowat from Fulham on transfer deadline day but he's going to be out for a long spell with injury having suffered a ruptured patella tendon injury in training. It's expected to keep him out for six months.

Conor Shaugnessy has a chance of returning from a calf injury while both Jacob Farrell and Regan Poole have come through a closed doors game against Havant & Waterlooville to assess their fitness.

They will include former Burnley goalkeeper Will Norris (pictured above), whose only Turf Moor appearance was the 3-0 defeat against Liverpool, played in front of a small crowd at the end of the 2020/21 season. He's now in his second season at Portsmouth for whom he has played all 51 league games since signing for them.

Portsmouth's team for their last game against West Brom was: Will Norris, Zak Swanson, Jordan Williams, Tom McIntyre (Regan Poole 76), Connor Oglivie, Marlon Pack, Andre Dozzell (Abdoulaye Kamara 61), Paddy Lane (Harvey Blair 61), Callum Lang, Jacob Murphy (Sam Silvera 62), Christian Saydee (Elias Sørensen 75). Subs not used: Nicolas Schmid, Ryley Towler, Freddie Potts, Matt Ritchie.

LAST TIME THEY WERE HERE

Just two weeks earlier we looked set to end our game at Hull in the Championship's bottom three as we trailed 2-0, and deservedly so, with not much time remaining. Then suddenly, we recovered to win 3-2, beat Ipswich 4-0 at home and then came from a goal behind to win 2-1 at West Ham.

Suddenly things were looking up, but Portsmouth came with just one intention, to spoil the game and hopefully go home with a point from a 0-0 draw which they almost achieved and then bettered.

We had one effort on target all afternoon, that from Chris McCann, but Portsmouth were hardly any better and the game had 0-0 stamped on it for much of the afternoon.

That was until stoppage time when Marvin Bartley gave the ball away, allowing David Norris to score the only goal of the game.

The teams were;

Burnley: Lee Grant, Kieran Trippier, Michael Duff, David Edgar, Ben Mee, Ross Wallace, Marvin Bartley, Chris McCann, Junior Stanislas (Martin Paterson 59), Sam Vokes (Charlie Austin 74), Jay Rodriguez. Subs not used: Jon Stewart, Brian Easton, Dean Marney.

Portsmouth: Stephen Henderson, Greg Halford, Ricardo Rocha, Jason Pearce, Joe Mattock, Hayden Mullins, George Thorne, Joel Ward, David Norris, Luke Varney (Erik Huseklepp 20), Dave Kitson. Subs not used: Jamie Ashdown, Aaron Mokoena, Marko Futacs, Benjani.

LAST TWENTY SEASONS

2007/08
Home: L 0-1 (League Cup)
2009/10
Away: L 0-2
Home: L 1-2, Paterson
2010/11
Away: W 2-1, Rodriguez, Marney
Home: D 1-1, Eagles
2011/12
Home: L 0-1
Away: W 5-1, Trippier, Ings, Austin(3)