Defeat in final tour game

The second and final game of the China tour ended in disappointment with a 4-3 defeat to Japanese side Kashima Antlers earlier this morning.

Falling behind afer just ten minutes, we never led during the match and were only on level terms once due to Antoine Sibierski's equaliser.

Blame seems to lie at the hands of the defence with Stuart Pearce commenting:

"It was poor defensively," I think for the youngster in goal it was great and he'll come on leaps and bounds because of evenings like tonight. But I don't think he had a great deal of cover in front of him, to be fair."

It was interesting that Joe Hart started in goal today with Pearce explaining that he wanted to give him some experience, but with news that Portsmouth have made an official approach for David James it seems there may have been more to the decision than that.

Joey Barton and Georgios Samaras scored the other goals for us to continue their pre-season scoring run.

Match reports:

teamtalk.com
Sky Sports