Joy and disappointment for Pompey goal hero Gary Roberts

The joy of a classy late leveller was balanced by the disappointment of a Pompey draw in the eyes of Gary Roberts.
Gary Roberts celebrates his equaliser. Picture: Joe PeplerGary Roberts celebrates his equaliser. Picture: Joe Pepler
Gary Roberts celebrates his equaliser. Picture: Joe Pepler

The midfielder denied a precious victory for struggling Yeovil when he swooped in the 85th minute to bag an eighth goal of the campaign.

After killing Adam McGurk’s pass with his right foot, Roberts half-volleyed the ball into the net with his left to seal a 1-1 draw.

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Having minutes earlier been reduced to 10-men following Christian Burgess’ second yellow card, it was a point embraced by the Blues.

However, Paul Cook’s men would have entered the Huish Park fixture focused on nothing but a win over an opposition fighting to remain in the Football League.

As it was, Francois Zoko had the Glovers contemplating three points following his 75th-minute goal.

Then Roberts intervened.

He said: ‘When you go down to 10-men you would possibly take a point, but we are Portsmouth, you don’t come to Yeovil to get a point.

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‘At the end of the day it is what it is, we still got a point. It was a bit of a scrappy game, we came here to pass the ball and play, while it was windy and the conditions were bad.

‘You would hope it could prove a crucial point, only time will tell with that, but I’m still disappointed we didn’t win the game.

‘You go there against a side near the bottom of the league and have to beat them and we haven’t – but we haven’t lost so that is a positive to take.

‘If Yeovil play like that every game they wouldn’t be near the bottom of the league, but every time Portsmouth come to town every team always raises their game. It’s a big match for teams, we have to overcome that.

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‘Over the 90 minutes you have got to be disappointed, we want to beat teams like Yeovil.

‘We were trying to win it with 10-men, we didn’t sit back, there were tired legs but we went for the win.

‘We have to go and win every game and now have to go to Barnet tomorrow to win, a couple of results went for us at the weekend and we need to get back winning.

‘And even though we didn’t play as well as we can, it was encouraging we dug in on Saturday.’

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Yeovil represented an eighth goal in 24 appearances for Roberts following his summer move from Chesterfield.

In the process he finds himself joint-top scorer with Conor Chaplin, Marc McNulty and Gareth Evans.

However, both Chaplin (ankle) and Evans (hamstring) are doubtful for tomorrow’s trip to Martin Allen’s Barnet (7.45pm).

Definitely missing will be Burgess following his red card against Yeovil, collecting an automatic one-match ban.

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The central defender received two bookings within two minutes, leading to his dismissal in the 83rd minute.

And Roberts has backed Burgess to learn from his mistake which, thankfully for Pompey, did not prove to be a costly one.

Roberts added ‘It was not great on Christian’s part but he will learn from that, he’s a young lad.

‘We need him, we need everyone. The second was a bit of a bad tackle, he’s a good player, has a good future ahead of him and needs to knock that on the head.’