After securing our place in the Premier League, our only goal was to finish the season on a good note and clinch the best spot possible. We were off to a good start, creating some opportunities to score. Unfortunately, we conceded a goal on a set-piece after 20 minutes of play, by former Lens forward Aruna Dindane. We had the chances to open to score but, as we did on many occasions, failed to convert chances.

At the 35^th minute, I head a free-kick coming from the left, the goalkeeper parries it but it falls to Doyle, who nets the equalizer (1-1). But we couldn’t keep this score for long because four minutes later, former Rennes player John Utaka put his team back on top.

We told ourselves at half-time that we had to try everything we can to equalize, against a Portsmouth team which didn’t deserve to be at this place. We had so many opportunities, I can’t even remember so many in a single game ! It’s unbelievable that we missed so many chances to score, we should have been up in this game but we were clumsy with our finishing and David James also made many good saves. And Portsmouth finally scored a third goal at the 67^th minute.

This score doesn’t reflect the story of the game but it’s true to say that we lost against a good team which had the desire to finish well in front of its fans. This is what we’ll try to do on Sunday against Sunderland.