Cardiff City revival continues with win over Portsmouth

Phil Blanche, PA

Cardiff climbed out of the Sky Bet Championship relegation zone with a second home win in the space of four days against Portsmouth.

A Regan Poole own goal and Callum Robinson’s close-range effort put Cardiff in command after 13 minutes on a night when the Bluebirds’ only regret was that the winning margin should have been far greater than the final 2-0 scoreline.

The victory, fresh from Saturday’s 5-0 thrashing of Plymouth, will strengthen interim manager Omer Riza’s hand in landing the job on a permanent basis.

Riza took charge last month with Cardiff bottom of the table after making their worst start to a campaign for 94 years; one point from six games signalling Erol Bulut’s departure.

Since losing his maiden outing at Hull, Riza has harvested 10 points from four games and now has Portsmouth in his wing mirror.

Portsmouth claimed a first scalp of the season at QPR on Saturday, but an inept opening 45 minutes left them with a mountain to climb in a city where they have not registered a league win for 40 years.

Cardiff-born Poole was a member of the Bluebirds academy before starting his professional career at nearby Newport, and it was his unfortunate touch that began Pompey’s misery.

Perry Ng’s cross was heading harmlessly across goal until the Wales international stuck out a foot and diverted the ball into the corner of the net.

Cardiff doubled their lead after Alex Robertson, barracked by the away following after an injury-hit Portsmouth loan spell last season, swung over a corner that Dimitrios Goutas helped on.

Robinson, near to the far post and two yards out, prodded the ball in via the underside of the crossbar for his fourth of the season.

Portsmouth almost went under as Ollie Tanner’s angled drive flashed by a post, Anwar El Ghazi’s ferocious free-kick was pushed out by goalkeeper Nicolas Schmid and David Turnbull’s effort was deflected wide.

But it got worse for the visitors as Schmid limped off and joined early casualty Paddy Lane on the sidelines, allowing summer signing Jordan Archer to make his Portsmouth debut.

Callum Lang’s wayward attempt failed to trouble Cardiff goalkeeper Jak Alnwick, though it did spark sarcastic cries of ‘we’ve had a shot’ from the well-populated away end.

The second-half pattern was the same as Archer thwarted Turnbull at full stretch and collected more comfortably on his line from Rubin Colwill.

Portsmouth went close when Kusini Yengi’s strike deflected off Lang and Alnwick made a tremendous reflex stop low to his right.

Alnwick denied Lang again late on, but Archer saved well from from El Ghazi, Turnbull and Colwill and it is Cardiff who suddenly have a spring in their step.