Date: 13-9-2008 Wrote by: EP's reporter Ahmad Matar
Mido is back to haunt every keeper's dream.
Now it was the time for England No. 1 David James to
concede a goal. Mido scored again for Boro to put them
in the lead in their away clash with Pompey. Mido exchanged
passes with Afonso Alves who laid the ball to Mido in
the area and the latter sent it home with a direct neat
touch to make the score 0-1. However, Jermain Defoe
scored twice in the 2nd half to end the game in a 2-1
away defeat for Boro.
Onform Mido continued to impress with
Boro as he scored his 3rd Premiership goal in 4 matches
this season to put himself 4th in the Premier League
top scorers while Defoe and Amr Zaki share the top spot
with four goals each.
While Shawky misssed the game because
of groing strain, Mido played from the start for the
fist time this season as Tuncay Sanli will be out for
a month as EP exclusively reported earlier.
It was the first time for Mido to play
alongside Afonso Alves. However, they linked up well
together for the goal which came in the 25th minute.
The goal came through a long ball which two defenders
couldn't head it away and it fell to Mido who headed
it down to Alves. The Brasilian striker laid the ball
superbly to Mido who took a very good position in front
of goal, Mido controlled the ball well under pressure
and sent a low shot into the bottom corner with his
left to beat England number one goalkeeper David James
and give Boro the lead against the run of play.
The second half started with Boro still on the lead,
but Portsmouth kept on their attacks until at the 59th
minute when Defoe scored from what looks like an impossible
angle to beat Boro's Turnbull at his near post following
good play from Crouch, but the keeper has to get the
blame for this goal.
In the 75th minute, Johnson was booked for an outrageous
dive and Mido needlessly got involved to have a chat
with the referee and collected one himself. It appears
that collecting yellow cards became the new hobby of
Mido besides scoring goals.
With only five minutes left, Mido was replaced by Adam
Johson. A couple of minutes later, Defoe managed to
score again as he volleyed the ball home after a long
hopeful ball into the box. That goal clinched victory
for Pompey in a similar way to Liverpool's 2-1 win over
Boro a couple of weeks earlier.
