Late Portsmouth Goal Sinks Struggling Middlesbrough

In a dramatic turn of events, Portsmouth secured a crucial victory over Middlesbrough with a goal in the seventh minute of stoppage time, significantly boosting their Championship survival hopes and severely damaging Boro's fading automatic promotion bid. The visitors' winless streak was snapped, thanks to a late deflected volley from Andre Dozzell off Conor Chaplin, following an eight-game winless run for John Mousinho's side. Middlesbrough, now winless in six games, trails second-placed Ipswich by three points, with Ipswich having two games in hand after their victory over Norwich. Portsmouth's win keeps them a point and a place above the relegation zone, following Chaplin's decisive strike. Despite Boro dominating the ball with 20 shots to Portsmouth's three, they have only scored four goals in their last six games, with two of those coming in a draw against Swansea. The home side started strongly, with Alan Browne forcing an early save from Nicolas Schmid and Adilson Malanda's shot being deflected onto the roof of the net from the resulting corner. However, for all their dominance, Middlesbrough struggled to create meaningful openings, with their only effort on target in the first half being Browne's early attempt and Dael Fry's close-range header being saved by Schmid in the last minute of the half. Boro had a chance to score early in the second half when David Strelec split the Portsmouth defense with a through-ball, but Schmid denied Riley McGree with his feet. They then had a glorious opportunity to break the deadlock when Tommy Conway robbed Regan Poole of possession, sparking a two-on-one attack, but instead of shooting, Conway opted to pass to strike partner Strelec, whose attempt was intercepted by Madiodio Dia, with Poole recovering to block the rebound from McGree. Conway again chose to pass rather than shoot in another opportunity, with his attempted through-ball for McGree bouncing off defender Jordan Williams and rolling wide of Schmid's post. Portsmouth launched a rare attack midway through the second half, with Terry Devlin picking out Colby Bishop, but the striker's audacious flick went wide. Boro nearly forced a breakthrough in added time, but half-time substitute Sontje Hansen saw his shot cleared off the line by Dozzell. Portsmouth then won a corner at the other end, and Fry's headed clearance only reached Dozzell, whose first-time strike deflected in off his teammate. Middlesbrough's Kim Hellberg expressed disappointment and devastation at the performance, stating it was 'poor' and 'like watching paint dry' in the first half, while Portsmouth's John Mousinho described the result as 'amazing' and acknowledged his side got lucky.