Town Down to Third Following Portsmouth Postponement
Sunday, 4th Jan 2026 18:34

Town have dropped to third in the Championship following today’s postponement at Portsmouth, but with leaders Coventry again dropping points.

The Sky Blues, who have now won only two of their last eight games, were beaten 3-2 at Birmingham and had central defender Bobby Thomas red-carded for violent conduct late on.

Middlesbrough moved ahead of Town into second following a comfortable 4-0 defeat of Southampton at the Riverside, ending a four-match winless run.

Boro are two points ahead of the Blues and six behind Coventry but with Town having a game in hand on both teams in front of them.

 Elsewhere at the top, Preston climbed to fourth after winning 2-0 at Bristol City, for whom ex-Blues skipper Sam Morsy made his debut as a second-half sub.

Millwall bagged a last-gasp winner as they defeated Swansea City 2-1 at the Den, while Stoke moved up to eighth having won 2-0 at Norwich.

Watford’s game at Hull City was postponed 18 minutes before its scheduled start due to potentially dangerous areas surrounding the pitch.

More details have emerged regarding the postponement of the Town match. The covers at Fratton Park, which doesn’t have undersoil heating or a hybrid pitch, were put in place at 1pm on Friday.

After an overnight frost, precautionary inspections, which weren’t made public, were held at 9am and 10am by referee Leigh Doughty with the two managers present, before the clubs announced that a formal inspection would take place at 11am and potentially another at midday should it be required.

Referee Doughty called the game off after the 11am inspection due to a frozen area of the surface which is overshadowed by the South Stand roof and therefore not getting any sun causing concern.

The postponement, the first at Fratton Park for a frozen pitch since February 2014, will be a frustration to the Blues more than Pompey, who were going into the match with a significant injury crisis and following a 5-0 hammering at Bristol City on Thursday.

A new date will now be arranged with Portsmouth also having to find a date for their visit to Charlton, which was abandoned after a supporter was taken ill at the start of December.

Town boss Kieran McKenna will have to wait until Saturday, until the FA Cup visit by Blackpool, for his 200th game in charge of the Blues, while Pompey manager John Mousinho will similarly celebrate 150 matches with his club when the Hampshire side host Arsenal a week today.

Photo: Action Images via Reuters

Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.

Page:
1

jas0999 added 18:39 - Jan 4 Middlesboro ugly looked good today. I wonder if Coventry will now go into free fall? Either way our squad should still be more than good enough to gain promotion. We have already played Boro, Hull. Bristol, Preston and Millwall away. Only really Watford away from home to worry about. Obviously picked up six against Coventry. Still looking good.
9

armchaircritic59 added 18:49 - Jan 4

Personally I'd rather have points rather than games in the bag, but overall we can't complain how things have gone over the past couple of weeks or so. It's now a genuine race for top spot never mind second. I expected the Coventry drop off and it's happened. They may come again of course. Going to be an exciting last few months with 63 points still to play for. Respective transfer windows may have a big part to play too. Let battle commence!

Brogan55 added 19:00 - Jan 4 Thinking about the new date,makes me wonder if we might end up with a game in hand towards the end of the season,similar to Barnsley and Coventry in our two promotion seasons.
2

tractorboy100 added 19:22 - Jan 4 I agree with jas0999, we are more than strong enough to gain automatic promotion, and we don't need to worry how the top 2 are doing! I just hope that we have a good transfer window to help out our players! COYB!!!!
4

hyperbrit added 20:32 - Jan 4 I thought that perhaps Southampton and Leicester City were poised for a late runs but it now looks that it will not happen after today's demolition of the Saints
1

poet added 21:19 - Jan 4

Keep a close eye on when the rearranged game against
Portsmouth will be scheduled. Let’s put it this way, we haven’t had a lot of luck with the fixture computer lately have we!

Last season, who were our first two opponents at the start of the PL fixtures.
Manchester City and Liverpool. Which two clubs were we scheduled to play one after the other over the busy Christmas and New Year period, well that was Liverpool and Manchester City.

This season, where was our rearranged game with Blackburn Rovers placed, well that was placed at the beginning of December making it 3 away games on the trot with a very short break either side, playing Coventry away straight after.

I don’t believe in coincidences, so perhaps Lady Luck seems to have influenced our fixtures of late.

oldbri added 21:34 - Jan 4 Well we have had cancelled games due to water and ice. Will the next one involve fire.
5

planetblue_2011 added 22:39 - Jan 4 Gutted - this game was postponed got 45 mins away from Portsmouth on the train & game was cancelled. It’s gonna be midweek game now which will be annoying. Only down to 3rd so not the worst, just hope we keep our good form up.
1

bobble added 06:54 - Jan 5 Very happy with where we are at this stage ,2nd highest scorers and best defence, no bad injuries game in hand on 2 in front and more rested ...
1

Clemcc added 07:56 - Jan 5 I think a ground person at Pompey (under instructions) was undercovering during the night but then covering enough before not getting caught and the referee coming to the ground that it looked covered since Friday. Conspiracy theory or what?
0

poet added 08:14 - Jan 5 Amendment my post above should read Coventry at HOME straight after.
0

Bazza8564 added 09:13 - Jan 5 £25m of unspent revenue from the summer, plus FFP allowable losses to spend in this window whilst Coventry and Boro i fear will have suitors after their best players. I know whose position I would prefer!
0

55015Deltic added 09:30 - Jan 5 Incompetence seen it so many times and it keeps happening. All Inspection decisions should be made the day before at every ground across the Country. The weather doesn’t miraculously change overnight! Thousands of people get affected it’s crazy….
0

VanDusen added 10:15 - Jan 5

@poet? What are you talking about - we didn't have Man City/Liverpool until the end of January?

Also - what about the immense luck we had the prior two seasons with first Barnsley, then Coventry - both potentially tricky banana skins in March/early April - being postponed until the final week of the season when they had little or nothing to play for?!

If you really want to talk about unfair fixture scheduling then perhaps go back to 2001/2 getting the top 3 (Arsenal, Man U, Liverpool) for our last three planned games (albeit punctuated by Middlesbrough at home in the end) overshadowing the whole season, or perhaps being the only team this century to be forced to play in the 2nd round of the League Cup despite being in Europe (2002) or the only team to have a semi-final (!!) rescheduled in favour of a Premier League match in 2001 and thus not even getting it televised?!

But really... it's just luck and we've had a fair amount of it over 2022-4...

OliveR16 added 10:49 - Jan 5 I'd feel more upset about it were it not that we dodged a bullet at Blackburn (even though their pitch state is inexcusably their own fault). As we always say, things even themselves out over a long season.
0

BobbyBell added 11:15 - Jan 5

We avoided a frosty bumpy pitch which would not have suited us and may have risked injury to key players. Middlesborough putting pressure on Coventry is no bad thing. The repeated moaning from Coventry fans over refs and injuries suggests that things are not going well for them. Their fans streaming out of the stadium at 2-0 down to us will have been noticed by their players too.

JewellintheTown added 11:48 - Jan 5 @Oldbri, fire has already happened - game wasn't cancelled at Coventry due to fire but they certainly got damaged by the Burns.
0

poet added 12:53 - Jan 5

VanDusen, why you’ve gone into a rant about other seasons when the subject matter of my post relates to the 2024/2025 season in the PL bemuses me.
Also, yes the Manchester City and Liverpool games were in January 2025, Manchester City and Liverpool are considered to be 2 of the very best squads in the PL and you don’t consider that after a very hectic Christmas and New Year period, these games came at a bad time for Town? Staggering. Couple that with the fact that they were the very first two clubs we encountered in our campaign and you don’t consider that to have been to our disadvantage? Once again….absolutely staggering.

MathieandMarshall added 13:21 - Jan 5

Would have been nice to have had the opportunity to close the gap to 5 points to Coventry and maintain 2nd place. More so for the physiological impact on the Coventry squad seeing their 15 point gap eaten up!

I also dont think the Pompey ground staff made too much effort to get the game on (under instruction from above) considering the state of their squad currently! - Nothing we can do about that and we'd probably be praising a Mark Ashton wonder class if we'd done the same!

The extra rest after a busy Xmas period may do us some good!