Portsmouth 1-2 Plymouth Argyle: Plymouth end away win drought at Portsmouth

Perhaps unsurprisingly, John Mousinho stuck with the same Portsmouth starting XI from Sunday’s excellent 1-0 win over Leeds.

Meanwhile, Argyle boss Miron Muslic made four changes from the dismal 3-0 home defeat by Sheffield Wednesday.

Pligrims top scorer Hardie only came off the bench at half-time on Saturday but started for the first time in six games after a back injury.

Tymoteusz Puchacz, Jordan Houghton and Michael Obafemi – who scored the winner in Argyle’s 1-0 win in the reverse fixture in November – also came in for the visitors.

The hosts made a strong start and Freddie Potts glanced a header wide from a Josh Murphy corner inside two minutes.

But from Plymouth’s first real attack Hardie’s powerful first-time half-volley from the right edge of the area drew a flying save from Sunday’s hero Nicolas Schmid in the Pompey goal.

Aouchiche curled narrowly past the top corner at the other end and Andre Dozzell skewed wide from a corner, while Bundu’s speculative attempt to catch Schmid off his line from halfway drifted wide.

Just after the half-hour Julio Pleguezuelo slid in to prevent Colby Bishop converting a low cross from Josh Murphy, and from Murphy’s subsequent corner Aouchiche’s flashing near-post header was somehow clawed off his line by Greens keeper Conor Hazard.

The visitors broke the deadlock when Obafemi’s first-time cross from the left was superbly laid off with his heel by Hardie for Bundu to take a touch and stroke to Schmid’s left and into the bottom corner – just Argyle’s seventh away goal of the campaign.

Pompey started fast after the turnaround and Hazard had to parry away an inswinging Murphy cross-shot.

But the lead was doubled when Marlon Pack was caught out of position and a clearance down the left channel allowed Hardie to streak away from halfway, before stretching to fire low past Schmid’s near post.

Cohen Bramall and Liverpool loanee Kaide Gordon were introduced by Mousinho as the hosts shifted formation and upped the tempo and Bishop saw a near-post effort from Zak Swanson’s cut-back deflected wide by Nikola Katic on the hour.

Katic inadvertently collided with team-mate Pleguezuelo leading to the Spaniard leaving on a stretcher, with Mumba also coming on to replace Hardie before the restart.