Pompey fail to end goal drought against Burton
There was a strong sense of déjà vu for everyone inside Fratton Park.
Pompey had started slowly against Cheltenham at the weekend, improved in the second half and finished with a goalless draw.
And it was exactly the same story three days later as promotion-chasing Burton visited the south coast.
Patrick Agyemang had the best opportunity to turn one point into three when he struck the inside of the post after the interval.
But Richie Barker was once again left bemoaning his side’s failure to find the net.
The Blues boss said: “We should have won. We created enough opportunities and the longer the game went on, we never looked like losing.
“But yet again there’s a lack of responsibility in the final third. We can’t go out and score goals for them.
“We’ve got a fantastic crowd and a half-decent pitch to get out there and get going from the start, but it just didn’t happen.
“The reaction after half-time was excellent and there was a 25 minute spell where there only looked one time capable of winning.
“But scoring goals is the hardest job in football and at the moment we haven’t got enough people who want to do that.
“Who wants to be the man who’s the hero by getting the winning goal in front of those fans at home? There are not enough people for me.”
Pompey have now kept four successive clean sheets since their heavy defeat at Scunthorpe last month.
Barker said: “I can’t come away and say we defended brilliantly because we didn’t have a great deal of it to do.
“Burton had a few half-decent chances in the first half – mainly from outside the box.
“But the reason we’re keeping clean sheets is because most of the time we’re dominating games. Teams can’t score against you when you do that.”
Ben Chorley went off at half-time against the Brewers and Barker revealed that the Pompey skipper was suffering with an Achilles injury.
He said: “He got a kick there a few weeks ago and it’s been really sore. It was starting to get sore again towards half-time and he didn’t want to do any more damage.”