Portsmouth 4 Charlton 2

SINCE taking charge in 1991, Charlton manager Alan Curbishley has known his share of defeats and disappointments. But some are much harder to take than others.

Such was the case on Saturday at Fratton Park where Charlton enriched their fabled powers of recovery by retrieving a 2-0 deficit only to stumble and slither to defeat against a club who had never beaten them in the Barclays Premiership.

Charlton gave everything to the spirit of the game but extracted nothing on a day when a trickle of misgivings over their ability to contest the UEFA Cup places became a flood of doubt.

“It now becomes imperative that we beat Bolton next Saturday,” said Curbishley when asked about the club’s fast receding European prospects.

Secretly, he has probably conceded that Charlton’s best chance of UEFA Cup qualification has passed them by for another season and that Premiership survival – no mean feat in itself – will be the main toast when glasses are touched at the club’s end-of-season dinner.

Two dodgy defences contrived to produce a match of unrelenting excitement for a crowd of 20,108.

From Charlton’s perspective it became easier to understand why the club have been linked repeatedly with young centre-backs Phil Jagielka (Sheffield United) and Danny Gabbidon (Cardiff) rather than the strikers supporters are pleading for.

The sheer pace of Portsmouth strikers Ayegbeni Yakubu and Lomana Tresor Lua Lua underlined how vulnerable the present back division is to attacks with genuine pace.

Curbishley said: “I was disappointed with the defending and the goals. The criticism that here Charlton go again, falling away in springtime will be levelled at us because the stats don’t lie.

“If we don’t defend better than that, then we don’t have a prayer. We’ve let in another four today – though the last one was my fault because I asked the players to go for it to try and get back in it.

“We have a problem in defence and it’s something we’ve got to work on and something we must rectify.”

Curbishley changed formation from 4-5-1 to 4-4-2, put in a sturdy midfield and went a goal down inside two minutes against opponents who had picked up just five points since Christmas in two draws and a 2-1 win over Middlesbrough.

Steve Stone’s cross was met by the unmarked Yakubu at the far post and he headed his 11th goal of the season. The goal arrived two minutes earlier than the previous week’s first conceded against Manchester City.

Charlton’s prospects were not helped by the loss of midfielder Radostin Kishishev after 18 minutes with a broken nose after Patrik Berger’s boot smashed into his face.

Two minutes later, Portsmouth had established a 2-0 lead when Berger’s free kick was headed home by Stone who soared above Danny Murphy to make the connection.

Charlton’s response was immediate. When Aliou Cisse fouled substitute Jerome Thomas, Murphy’s well-flighted free kick was headed home by Jonathan Fortune.

Murphy celebrated his 200th Premier League appearance with an equaliser deep into first-half stoppage time. When Portsmouth skipper Arjan De Zeeuw was penalised for a foul some 25 yards out, Murphy calmly curled the ball round the wall and past Jamie Ashdown in the Portsmouth goal.

When Murphy played for Liverpool he was never on the losing side in any of the 23 Premiership matches in which he scored. The many hundreds of Charlton supporters, who had been transported to the ground free of charge thanks to the generosity of the club’s directors, were hoping the statistic would hold firm for the Addicks.

Though Charlton at times rode their luck, as Yakubu missed a sitter and then struck a post, they matched the home side in every facet of the game.

Goalkeeper Ashdown was alert to Murphy’s quickly taken free kick which he turned aside at full stretch in the 70th minute. In the 81st, the recalled Francis Jeffers spun sharply and shot over.

New Portsmouth manager Alain Perrin gambled by introducing two more forwards in substitutes Diomansy Kamara and Alex Rodic to supplement Yakubu and Lua Lua.

It paid off handsomely in the 83rd when Lua Lua outwitted Hermann Hreidarsson and crossed for Kamara to beat goalkeeper Dean Kiely to the punch and head home to restore his side’s lead.

Lua Lua turned goalscorer in the final minute when Yakubu played him through and despite the close attentions of Hreidarsson, he accelerated through to beat Kiely.

A goal difference of minus nine for a club in eighth place on Saturday night underlines why Charlton will fall short of the European reckoning in the final analysis.

Charlton: Kiely, Young, Perry (Johansson 87), Fortune, Hreidarsson, Holland, Kishishev (Thomas 18), Murphy, Konchesky, Jeffers, Bartlett (Lisbie 60). Subs Not Used: Andersen, Hughes.

Attendance: 20,108.