{"id":274790,"date":"2026-08-29T18:23:05","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T18:23:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/274790\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T18:23:05","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T18:23:05","slug":"michael-skubala-salutes-fantastic-lorent-tolaj-finish-in-bristol-city-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/274790\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Skubala salutes \u2018fantastic\u2019 Lorent Tolaj finish in Bristol City win"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The former Plymouth striker met Jed Wallace\u2019s 31st-minute cross from the right with a first-time right-footed finish at the near post which arrowed the ball into the roof of the net at the end of a flowing move involving Yu Hirakawa and Jason Kinght.<\/p>\n<p>Skipper Knight doubled the advantage on 57 minutes with a powerful header from a Rio Cardines corner and it wasn\u2019t until deep into stoppage time that Pompey substitute Marezi pulled a goal back, sending goalkeeper Sam Tickle the wrong way with a low penalty after he had been fouled by Lisav Eissat.<\/p>\n<p>Skubala said: \u201cIt was a fantastic finish for the first goal, but I have seen Lorent do that in training. What pleased me as much was that the move leading up to it came off the training ground because we had worked on hurting them in transition.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLorent was unlucky not to score in our last game and will gain a lot of confidence from his first goal. We have good attacking options now among our group of strikers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJason Knight gave a captain\u2019s performance and capped it with his goal. We are still in contract negotiations with him and I want to keep all my good players at the club.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat was a training ground goal as well. We worked on getting Jason into a position to score and it was a great header.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought our fans were outstanding. I know from experience how loud the Pompey supporters can be, but ours were brilliant and it was great to reward them with three points.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is not about me and getting my first win. The important thing was for the players to get a victory under their belts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI will have a glass of red wine with the staff and then get straight on with preparing for our next game against Preston on Tuesday.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Portsmouth boss John Mousinho felt there was not much between the teams, but that his players could have done more to prevent the first goal.<\/p>\n<p>He said: \u201cIt came because we were not patient enough in getting the ball forward. We went direct and left them space in midfield to counter attack.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople complain when teams get caught playing out from the back, but sometimes it can be just as much of an error to lose possession by knocking balls forward too early.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think there was a lot wrong with the team and there was not much to choose between the sides. We expected a tough game because of the way Bristol City have performed over the last couple of seasons.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we had gone in level at half time, there would have been the chance to reassess and it might have been a different outcome.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe second goal was unacceptable. We had delegated someone to mark Jason Knight and to attack the ball in that zone.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was a stonewall penalty at the end because our player was held as the cross came in. Marezi took it well, but it wasn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are still hoping to bring in a few players before the transfer deadline, but I am not sure how close we are.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former Plymouth striker met Jed Wallace\u2019s 31st-minute cross from the right with a first-time right-footed finish at&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[128,130,129],"class_list":["post-274790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}