More FA Cup blues

Show me anyone who can just shrug off the quarter-final FA Cup defeat by Portsmouth with an 'oh well' and I will show you a fraud.

In my lifetime, I am going to be fortunate if I ever see Blues get to an FA Cup semi-final again, let alone the final itself, the way its going.

The Cup may mean little to too many, but it still carries a resonance to those of us who were brought up to marvel at the wonderful theatre at Wembley in May, especially in the old stadium.

Ask any Coventry City fan what 1987 means and just watch them go all misty-eyed.

Ask any Blues fan what 1956 means, what memories the 1975 semi-final brings back - and as for 2006 quarter-final, the 0-7, let's not even go there.

We've known that Blues have hardly been dynamic up front or out wide for most of the season. Yet, to their credit, they have got by. Not this time.

More creative, incisive play higher up the pitch was needed at Fratton Park. Blues weren't so much pedestrian, but lacking inventiveness and swiftness when attacking.

A player like Quincy, twiddling his thumbs on the Portsmouth bench, may be inconsistent and infuritating, but he's the kind that Blues needed to shake it up a bit on the flanks.

I've written before that Blues could dearly do with the next Stan Lazaridis to provide real width and balance, someone who can carry the ball and break a game open.

And hence the intention to recruit in the summer on the wing and at centre-forward.

That Blues didn't in January can be thrown at them here, and the circumstances and reasons for that have been discussed at length. Blues should have had enough to have won the tie anyway.

In the first-half, you didn't worry about Blues losing. Portsmouth looked nervy and left holes and gaps. Had Blues scored, that would have been it. But they didn't.

Blues passed the ball about better than Portsmouth, yet needed to bring the hammer down and test David James more than they did.

In the second-half, Portsmouth unsurprisingly stepped up their efforts and Blues, mysteriously, didn't function. They were stretched, moved the ball about badly and were not the compact side we are used to seeing.

They were pressed out of their stride too and lost their poise.

It wasn't that they didn't try, or weren't 'up for it'. They just played poorly in the half, made errors of judgment and lacked a cutting edge throughout.

Portsmouth's first goal could have been avoided. I'm not so sure Scott Dann had to slide and crunch in to try and clear when Joe Hart was diving on the ball.

The second followed so quickly when Blues were in a state of shock. That was the killer strike. Had Blues kept some composure for a few minutes longer, they could still have rescued the tie.

Liam Ridgewell's 'goal' . . . what can you say? Linesman Adam Watts apparently told Steve Bennett that he 'wasn't sure' if the ball had gone over the line or not.

By the same token, maybe he's not sure whether his flag should be waved or stuck somewhere the sun don't shine.

Sometimes to the naked eye live, especially sitting in the press box at the back of the stand, you can never tell. On this occasion, it was obvious to me, as it should have been to Watts, who was in a perfect position.

I would have fancied Blues to have staged a storming finish, like they did at Derby County, had Ridgewell's 'goal' stood.

Christian Benitez, should he have started? Easy to say with hindsight, and let's not forget he was poor at Derby and previously against Wolves which, combined with what he looked like in training, resulted in him being left out.

The bottom line was that the game was there for the taking by Blues. It was an opportunity passed up. This group of players have performed so well for so long, they don't become dunderheads overnight.

Unfortunately, they choose the wrong afternoon to misfire.

It was like in 2004, when Sunderland won a fifth round replay at St Andrew's 2-0 in extra-time. Blues played like they had lead in their boots that night.

That was the year the path to the final was wide open: Millwall beat Sunderland in the semis.

Perhaps mocking, cruel fate is always destined to lurk on Blues shoulder in the FA Cup, then pounce when you dare to dream things could be going your way for once.