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A fifteen minute hat trick from star of the show Brett Pittman helped condemn The Posh to defeat in their first away fixture as Peterborough United came crashing back down to Earth after such an encouraging start to the season. The pre match feeling was positive. After receiving good news that McLeans injury picked up against Rotherham in the League Cup midweek wasnt as bad as first thought, The Posh bo s, Gary Johnson, was able to name a pretty much un-changed team from Tuesday night with only Grant McCann returning to the first team after arriving back from international duty with Northern Ireland. Charlie Lee made way and was dropped to the bench.Cherries bo s Eddie Howe, who coincidently rejected an approach from Peterborough nearly 12 months ago, made two changes to his starting eleven as Michael Symes was brought into the line-up to make his competitive home debut Jimmie Foxx Jersey after returning from injury with Marc Pugh the other home debutant, in a 4-4-2 formation. Ryan Garry and Danny Hollands took up their places on the bench after picking up minor injuries midweek.Peterborough, after winning their first two games of the season and scoring 7 goals in the proce s, were looking to extend the good start to their season with victory at Dean Court. However, it was the home side that created the early pre sure, winning 4 corners within the first 5 minutes of the match, despite no serious threat developing from them. Instead of aiming to use the height advantage of the front two, manager Eddie Howe had obviously targeted the Posh full backs by utilising the pure pace and trickery of the Bournemouth wide men. Their cause was helped by the fact that Poshs wingers had a very attacking mentality, enabling the Bournemouth wingers more time and space on the ball whilst in the visitors half. Peterborough were struggling to settle into the game and could only manage a tame blocked effort from George Boyd before the Cherries stamped their authority on the game. Only 9 minutes in and Liam Feeney used all the time and space provided to him by Posh defender Nana to his advantage by delivering a tasty looking cro s in from the right hand side. The ball was perfectly weighted for left winger MARC PUGH to power the ball pa sed Joe Lewis in the Peterborough goal to give the advantage to the home side, whilst embarra sing full back Mark Little who seemed to make alimited effort with his jump and positional sense.A wake up call maybe? Perhaps Babe Ruth Jersey not as the Posh players seemed unable to pa s the ball around with the freedom they wanted and Bournemouth refused to take their foot off the gas and continued to dominate proceedings. Only 10 minutes after the first goal Nana made a mistake in the middle of the park and gave the ball away to Michael Symes who played a simple through ball for ANTON ROBINSON to coolly slot the ball past the onrushing Steven Wright Jersey Joe Lewis and double the Cherries advantage. Gary Johnson could only look on as a spectator and watch his side fall apart as they now faced an uphill struggle to salvage anything from the game.The visitors arrived looking to continue their impre sive scoring record, yet they were looking lacklustre, dejected and were failing to create any sort of move that resembled a fast flowing attacking force normally a sociated with the Posh front three. Offensively, there were limited options. Mackail-Smith and McLean were chasing shadows upfront whilst George Boyd wasnt his usual self and his first touch was one that, unfortunately, represented a conference player. On the right, Mendez-Laing was failing to impre s the increasingly frustrated Posh faithful with a somewhat fruitle s performance. Going forward he was wasteful with po se sion and, whilst defending, he did an impre sive impre sion of a maverick.Despite this, McLean had a headed effort from a McCann set piece comfortably saved by birthday boy Shwan Jalal before Mackail-Smith came close after dragging his left footed effort acro s goal from a seriously acute angle, unfortunately no Posh players were there to apply a finishing touch. Just before half time, Mclean had a desperate drive from distance, but to no avail, as Jalal, the former Posh keeper, had a comfortable save to make.The first half petered out and Jalals clean sheet against his former team was still firmly in tact as the Posh faithful responded to the first half performance with a chorus of boos at the sound of the half time whistle. Contrastingly, the Cherries on the other hand were delighted with their first half display as they easily controlled proceedings and looked comfortable sitting on their 2 goal cushion.Gary Johnson was obviously livid with what he had witne sed in the first half and made several changes for the second half. The usele s Mendez-Laing and full back Nana were replaced at the interval by Tommy Rowe and Charlie Lee in a makeshift 5-3-2 formation which contained 3 centre halves with wing backswith George Boyd moving into a central role in behind the front two.The second half in the pouring rain got off to a controversial start as Mackail-Smith was brought down by Boston Red Sox Hats Wiggins who clearly had his arms tugging at the former Dagenham and Redbridge striker. Despite the protests, referee Miller turned down the appeal. From my view, it looked a stone wall penalty.Arguably, this could have been the turning point in the match; however, the home side went straight up the other end to consolidate their lead even further. Attacking on the counter attack Fred Lynn Jersey and targeting the Peterborough defence out wide once again, Marc Pugh outpaced the newly introduced Charlie Lee who couldnt keep up and Pugh cleverly pulled the ball back to BRETT PITTMAN who made no mistake and powered it home with his left foot to make it 3-0 to the home side, whilst crushing any sort of come back from Posh.Moments later Pugh was again causing havoc for the Posh defence as a slip from Lee allowed him in, but Lewis denied the former Bury wide man.The visitors were denied a goal back by a mixture of good defending and woeful finishing as a corner from McCann was headed goal wards by former Shrewsbury man Kelvin Langmead, only for his effort to be cleared off the line by Robinson. The rebound fell nicely for Mackail-Smith, but his awful effort summed up the afternoon for his team as he had his effort cleared off the line again by Robinson, despite having the rest of the goal to aim at from close range.The defence couldnt help itself and Charlie Lee again had a lapse of concentration as he played a suicide ball back to Joe Lewis on 57 minutes which was easily intercepted by BRETT PITMAN who calmly skipped past Lewis and pa sed it into the Peterborough goal for his second of the afternoon.At 4-0 before the hour mark, chants of Cheerio cheerio cheerio were aimed at the Posh fan |
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發表於 2023-3-10 14:32:41
