Late Portsmouth Strike Sinks Fading Middlesbrough

In a dramatic turn of events, Portsmouth secured a crucial victory with a late goal in stoppage time, significantly boosting their Championship survival hopes and dealing a severe blow to Middlesbrough's dwindling automatic promotion bid. The visitors managed their first shot on target in the final moments, courtesy of Andre Dozzell's volley deflecting off Conor Chaplin, thus ending Portsmouth's eight-game winless streak. Middlesbrough now finds themselves winless in six matches and three points behind second-placed Ipswich, who have two games in hand after their win at Norwich earlier in the day. Portsmouth's winner keeps them a point and a place above the relegation zone. Despite Boro's dominance with 20 shots to Portsmouth's three, they have only scored four goals in their last six games, with two coming from their draw at Swansea. The match saw Middlesbrough start strongly, with Alan Browne forcing an early save from Nicolas Schmid, but they struggled to create meaningful openings despite their dominance. Portsmouth's goal came as a surprise, with Chaplin scoring the winner in stoppage time, deflecting in off a teammate from a corner. Middlesbrough had several chances, including a close-range header saved by Schmid and a two-on-one attack that was thwarted by the Portsmouth defense. Portsmouth manager John Mousinho described the result as 'amazing' and acknowledged that his team got lucky, while Middlesbrough's Kim Hellberg expressed disappointment and frustration with his team's performance, describing it as 'poor' and 'boring'.