Winger felt Pompey deserved more at Stevenage
Pompey crashed out of the FA Cup at the first hurdle against Stevenage.
But Andy Barcham was still proud of how the Blues performed against their League One opponents at the Lamex Stadium.
They looked down and out when Gavin Mahon was sent off with Pompey trailing to Francois Zoko’s brace.
But David Connolly’s close-range finish restored some hope before Boro survived a late onslaught.
And Barcham felt the Blues were unfortunate not to grab an equaliser – especially when he went down in the box late on.
The winger said: “I thought it was a penalty – we all did. I wrong-footed the defender and he leant into me as I tried to cross the ball.
“But the referee didn’t see it that way, so we had to keep going and try to get another goal.
“I thought we did enough to at least force a replay, so it’s disappointing that we’re out of the FA Cup.
“The gaffer tried to keep things positive and told us how well we played, but it was always going to be difficult with 10 men.
“Credit to the boys, we kept working hard. Then we got a goal and it looked like we might go on to get another one.
“Unfortunately it wasn’t meant to be, but I think we can be proud of how we stuck together and kept going.
“We were creating chances up until the final whistle and were unfortunate not to get anything out of the game.”
Barcham played the full 90 minutes at Stevenage, despite making his first start in more than a month.
He said: “I’ve had a little niggle with my knee and it’s been very frustrating after starting the season in the side.
“I didn’t want to come out of the side because I was enjoying it so much, but it got to the stage where I was finding it hard to train.
“I needed to get it sorted and it feels fine now. It was good to be back out on the pitch again.”