Stoke City stays in touch with much-needed win
Stoke City stayed in the EFL Championship play-off picture after an own goal by Portsmouth defender Hayden Matthews handed it a first away win since in more than two months.
Matthews's misfortune was a result of an excellent cross from Sorba Thomas which he couldn't deal with adequately.
Victory was only Stoke's second win in the Championship in its past seven games, but keeps it in fifth place on 21 points, two ahead of Charlton Athletic and one behind Bristol City.
"The performance was good enough, first half especially, I thought we were really good and should have been 2-0 up," Potters boss Mark Robins said.
"We didn't take those chances and gave the opposition the encouragement to remain in the game when we should have put it to bed.
"They smelt that and came out in the second half to put us under a lot of pressure to start with, but we also put ourselves under pressure with a lot of strange decisions, but had a brilliant goalkeeper who made a great save.
"When we needed to, we defended properly and saw the game out."
Defeat leaves John Mousinho's Portsmouth with just one win in its past eight league games, and it was a poor first half that left it unable to get anything from this match.
"We took 45 minutes to get going, but it was a much-improved performance in the second half, when we were by far the better side but didn't put the ball in the back of the net," Mousinho said.
"It was a poor piece of defending to concede the goal and, after that, we didn't make good enough decisions and stopped doing the things that had made us a good side in the second half.
"With the level of performance and the amount of chances we created, we definitely should have won the game."
