Thought we played quite well, didn't give Portsmouth much to shout about, the back 4 played well and Deegan was a rock in front of them. He played his role really well, always seemed to be in the right position, decent on the ball too. That said I thought we had no cutting edge at all until we went 1-0 up and Portsmouth started leaving holes on the counter. People are asking where the passing game has gone, I think a big part of that is down to Clifford being on the bench. I'll say it again, Deegan was superb, and I'm not saying he should be dropped, but I definitely think our incisive passing game I saw against Stevenage was lost, a part of that may be down to formation, but I'd say without Clifford (or maybe Timlin for that matter) we'll struggle to create that again.
Payne was superb too. He keeps the ball so well, both whilst dribbling, he seems to glide through, and picks the right pass and accurately too. If the others could play passes like he does then we'd be laughing.
That all said, I didn't come away from the game with huge optimism for the season ahead. If we can get back to playing like we did against Stevenage, then we could do well, but we still lacked anything to worry Portsmouth in the final third, Corr was very poor in my book, he didn't win a lot and gave the ball away too much. It was only a header from 1 yard out that caused so much optimism around the ground. We were solid defensively, sure, but I didn't see anything that caused me to think we've turned a corner goalscoring wise.
For me Weston was woeful really, seemed to be in the wrong position doing the wrong thing. Case in point was him consistently asking for the ball out wide when we have a freekick, when all can see that he'd lose it there, which he promptly did. I think Worrall looks a better player than Hurst overall, and Shaq than Weston.