By Jake Hastings
Cardiff City climbed out of the Championship relegation zone after a dominant 2-0 victory against fellow-strugglers Portsmouth.
An own goal from Regan Poole and a strike from Callum Robinson extended Cardiff’s unbeaten run to four and further suggested they can put a dreadful start to the season behind them.
Cardiff started the better of the two sides and took the lead six minutes in when Poole turned Perry Ng’s low driven cross into his own net.
Things then got even better for the home side when Alex Robertson’s corner found the head of Dimitrios Goutas whose flick-on landed at the feet of Robinson, who smashed home off the underside of the bar.
Ollie Tanner almost made it 3-0 with only 20 minutes played but his shot flew just past the left post.
Things went from bad to worse for Pompey when goalkeeper Will Norris went down injured and had to be replaced by substitute ‘keeper Jordan Archer.
Archer had to make an instant impact when he tipped David Turnbull’s long-range effort past the post.
Portsmouth created their first chance of the game 10 minutes after half-time when Kusini Yengi’s shot almost deflected past Jak Alnwick, who reacted well to keep the score at 2-0.
A few minutes later, Cardiff almost killed off the game when Anwar El-Ghazi was played through one-on-one, but his shot was saved by the outstretched leg of Archer.
The away side kept pressing and almost got a goal back when Callum Lang fired a long-range effort through a crowd of bodies which almost found the bottom left-hand corner, but Alnwick got down well to keep it out.
Cardiff managed to see the rest of the game out and are loving life under interim boss Omer Riza.