Preston 2-1 Portsmouth: Stefan Thordarson strikes hammer blow!

By Jonny Bentley

PRESTON NE 2

Porteous 76, Thordarson 87

PORTSMOUTH 1

Bishop 83

John Mousinho angrily blasted his Portsmouth players after they conceded a late Stefan Thordarson winner against Preston North End.

Pompey had pegged back Ryan Porteous’ first goal for North End when Colby Bishop equalised with his second goal in three matches.

However, Iceland international Thordarson showed impressive footwork to net the winner in the 87th minute of a game that only really exploded into life in the latter stages.

Despite a good performance for the most part, the Portsmouth boss was left enraged by the defeat.

Abysmal

He said: “Ultimately, my focus is on what happened after we got the equaliser and the performance after that was abysmal.

“I’m absolutely furious.

“You equalise, 1-1 away from home against Preston – a good Championship side – take the point, sit in and we can still catch them on the counter-attack, but we just went completely off script.

“We started doing the wrong things on the press and the goal is the worst goal we’ve conceded this season.

“I have banged on for 38 games and about 100 games since I’ve been in charge about fouling early, stopping sides from having the opportunity to break on us quickly, but we decided to do otherwise.”

He added: “I can always deal with sides scoring goals against us and deal with losses.

“I can’t deal with sides scoring goals against us and losses where the players are doing their own thing and not doing what I’ve asked them to do.

“I’ve probably been far too nice to the players for a long time and if the message isn’t filtering in then I’ve got to try and do it in a different way.”

CLOSE: Cohen Bramall, right, hits the bar

Match action

Portsmouth started the game well and Terry Devlin should have done better with a chance in the 19th minute before Andre Dozzell nearly bagged the opener, curling narrowly wide from just inside the box.

After a lethargic opening half from the hosts, Paul Heckingbottom made four substitutions during half-time.

The changes did inject some punch into proceedings when Sam Greenwood sent an inch-perfect pass towards Emil Riis, but North End’s top scorer headed wide from ten yards.

Somewhat against the run of play, the visitors then nearly took the lead as Cohen Brammall rattled the bar with a sensational 40-yard piledriver.

It was a later substitute, Ched Evans, who set up the opener, touching a well worked free-kick across the six-yard box for Porteous to turn home at the far post.

However, Portsmouth roared back quickly and Bishop powered home an 83rd-minute header from Josh Murphy’s corner.

Preston then nearly won it just moments after the equaliser as Brady teed up Evans for what looked like a tap-in from a few yards out, only for Nicolas Schmid to make a remarkable save with his foot.

But Preston did get their late winner when Thordarson rounded Schmid before slotting home.