Wednesday’s final home game of our Championship season ended in a tame 1-1 draw with Portsmouth at Hillsborough this afternoon.
It could, and should, have been three points rather than one as we held the upper hand, particularly in the second half, but again paid for missed chances.
The end-of-game statistics showed 18 shots for Wednesday – five on target – while Pompey managed just two efforts throughout.
The point takes us onto 57 points and up to 12th place with the last game of the season at Watford next Saturday.
We began brightly against Portsmouth and, after Yan Valery headed wide, we took the lead on nine minutes.
Callum Paterson didn’t make the best of contacts when the ball dropped to him eight yards out, from a miscued effort by Stuart Armstrong, but his shot into the ground bounced up into the net via the underside of the bar.
Portsmouth looked dangerous themselves early on and were close to an equaliser when Conor Ogilvie just failed to connect with a header at the near post.
But they were level on 23 minutes with Wednesday, not for the first time this season, paying the price for poor defending. We lost possession sloppily as we moved forward on the right and when Josh Murphy sent in the resulting low cross Harvey Blair got ahead of Marvin Johnson to steer home from close range.
After a promising start, Wednesday’s play began to lack lacked any tempo for the remainder of the half before we sparked back into life for a spell immediately after the interval.
Half-time sub Anthony Musaba soon brought a diving save out of Ben Killip in the Pompey goal with a 20-yarder and then fired over with an angled drive.
Josh Windass did likewise just after the hour and, with Portsmouth posing little threat going forward, we continued to dominate but again lacked clinical finishing.
This was underlined just two minutes from the end of normal time when Musaba missed an excellent chance, smashing over the bar from 12 yards and leaving us to have to settle for a point.
P Charles, Valery (Palmer 74), Ihiekwe, Johnson, S Charles, Armstrong (Ingelsson 68), Bannan, Gassama (Musaba 46), Windass, Paterson (McNeill 82), Smith (Chalobah 74) Unused subs: Beadle, Ugbo, Hasuse, Kobacki. Attendance: 28,346.