John Utaka scored his first goal for a year, and the 1,000th in Premier
League history, to help Portsmouth secure a 3-1 victory against Wolves
in their final top-flight match of the season at Fratton Park.
Aruna Dindane and Michael Brown were also on target as Avram Grant's
already relegated side ended a seven-match winless run in style.
Portsmouth 3-1 Wolverhampton Wanderers: As it happened
Kevin Doyle's eighth goal of the season proved to be no more than a consolation for the visitors.
FA Cup finalists Pompey took the lead in the 20th minute when Dindane
rose unchallenged to head Brown's floated free-kick beyond Marcus
Hahnemann and into the left corner of the net.
The goal seemed to spark a dull game into life and Hahnemann denied the
hosts a second on 25 minutes, pushing away Frederic Piquionne's
powerful right-foot shot following the Frenchman's marauding run.
Wolves came agonisingly close to equalising in the 29th minute when
Geoffrey Mujangi Bia narrowly failed to connect to David Jones' teasing
free-kick.
Mujangi Bia should have done better when he shot straight at David
James after Karl Henry had tricked his way past Steve Finnan and pulled
the ball back for the Belgian.
Doyle showed Mujangi Bia how it should be done ten minutes before the
break. James pulled off a superb double save to stop headers from
Ronald Zubar and Doyle but was powerless to prevent the Irishman
bundling in the rebound.
Wolves' joy was short-lived though as Utaka cashed in on more sloppy
defending from the visitors to restore Portsmouth's lead just four
minutes later.
Utaka was given far too much freedom to cut in from the right wing
before firing an unstoppable low shot past Hahnemann from the edge of
the penalty area.
James needed to be at his best early in the second half to turn Doyle's
acrobatic effort over the crossbar and Wolves should have been level on
the hour when Doyle's shot rebounded off a post and the hapless Sylvan
Ebanks-Blake scuffed his rebound effort wide when presented with an
open goal.
Brown put the game out of Wolves' reach 23 minutes from time with a sweetly-struck right-foot shot from midway inside the box.
Source: DSG