Pompey suffer home defeat to Blackburn

Portsmouth 1 Blackburn 2

Blackburn earned a Carling Cup quarter-final place by inflicting Portsmouth’s first home defeat since March with goals by Benni McCarthy and Morten Gamst Pedersen.

McCarthy struck after 12 minutes for his fourth goal in four games and a seventh this season and despite a fantastic save by David James defying Chris Samba, it was Norwegian midfielder Pedersen who killed off Pompey’s second-half fightback after a Pedro Mendes error after 76 minutes.

Substitute David Nugent missed with a close-range header and Kanu’s late goal proved a mere consolation.

Blackburn sealed victory though with 14 minutes left when Morten Gamst Pedersen fired home after a mistake by Pedro Mendes let in Santa Cruz.

The Portsmouth midfielder gave the ball away and then got in a block-tackle on the striker but the ball ran loose for Pedersen to drill past James.

Portsmouth kept fighting to the finish but a could not respond in front of a disappointing 11,788 crowd until substitute Kanu headed in a Glen Johnson free-kick in stoppage-time.