Loan report: Pompey win first game of league campaign

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Charlie Hanson

2025-03-03T13:00+00:00

Hannah Poulter celebrates Portsmouth's first win of the league season. 📷 by Portsmouth FC.

Portsmouth Women's dreams of retaining their Championship status was handed a huge boost as they claimed their first win of the campaign.

Hannah Poulter kept a cleansheet in the 2-0 win over Sheffield United, which drags Pompey to within just a point of safety.

Stefanos Tzimas scored his first goal for Nuremburg since his move to Albion was confirmed.

⏰ 36'#Tzimas setzt sich nach einem langen Ball durch, schiebt die Kugel zu #Castrop, der noch einmal auf #Antiste querlegt. Der überlupft #Zieler, der Ball geht an die Unterkante der Latte und #Tzimas drückt ihn über die Linie! JAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

⚽ 1:0 | #FCNH96 | #fcn pic.twitter.com/FFDAXgGqpR
— 1. FC Nürnberg (@1_fc_nuernberg) March 1, 2025

The Greek striker joined us in January on a contract until June 2030, but returned to Nuremburg on loan for the second half of the campaign.

The 19-year-old fired his team into the lead at home against Hannover after 36 minutes, but the visitors scored twice to snatch all three points. Stefanos now has 11 goals in 2. Bundesliga this season.

A mile or so over the border in Strasbourg, Valentin Barco’s unbeaten start to life with the Ligue 1 side continued as he helped his team to a 1-0 win over Auxerre. The Argentinian has enjoyed three wins and a draw in his first four Ligue 1 appearances.

Also in the French top-tier, Abdallah Sima wasn’t able to add to his tally of five league goals as his Stade Brestois side were beaten 2-1 by Lyon. Abdallah has eight goals in all competitions for Brest this season.

There was also disappointment in Austria for Albion duo Kjell Scherpen and Malick Yalcouye, as both started in a 3-1 defeat of what has in the past couple of years been a top of the table tussle with RB Salzburg.

Leicester City’s 2-0 defeat to West Ham saw Facundo Buonanotte and Evan Ferguson come up against each other. Facundo played the full 90 minutes as the Foxes lost 2-0, with Evan coming on for the final 20 minutes.

In the EFL, James Beadle’s Sheffield Wednesday slipped to a third consecutive defeat as they were beaten 2-1 by Sunderland, while Burnley’s FA Cup journey came to an end at the hands of Preston North End. Jeremy Sarmiento played for 70 minutes before being withdrawn.

Meanwhile, Andrew Moran played 75 minutes as Stoke earned an important point at home against Watford. The Potters are desperately trying to pull away from the bottom three, but find themselves on a three-game winless run.

There was little joy for our players in League One, with Caylan Vickers the only player to pick up a point in Mansfield Town’s 1-1 draw at Burton Albion. Odel Offiah suffered a 2-1 defeat to Stockport with Blackpool and Kamari Doyle’s Crawley lost 2-0 to Cambridge United. The defeat for the Red Devils sees them cut six points adrift from safety and any hopes of a playoff place for the Tangerines look all but gone following their loss.

Ben Jackson (Queens Park), Samy Chouchane (Northampton Town), Luca Barrington (Grimsby Town), Mark O’Mahony (Portsmouth), Comfort Erhabor (Portsmouth Women) and Ibrahim Osman (Feyenoord) were all unused substitutes for their teams.