BOTH Portmore United and Vere United failed to spark in a dour nil-all draw in the Monday Night Football game in the Jamaica Premier League (JPL).

Fans have come to expect fast exciting football on Monday nights at the Anthony Spaulding Sports Complex; however, on Monday night that was completely lacking as it was a game of defences on top.

The teams managed to carve out a few chances either side of the half-time whistle, however, poor finishing was the order of the day.

In the end, Portmore United Head Coach Phillip Williams admitted that a draw was a fair result.

“Based on the run of play, we are pleased with coming away with a point,” he said.

Williams thought that after an ordinary first half, the personnel changes he employed made a bit of a difference offensively.

“In the first half I think we were a bit behind for the most part. In the second half we made some changes, we got our front players to be more mobile and I think that caused the Vere team some amount of problems.”

He also admitted that the area of finishing is something that both he and his coaching staff will need to address in training.

“We got quite a few chances and I think that with a much more clinical strike force, probably we would have gotten all three points, but in terms of creating the chances for the front players, I didn’t think we did enough.”

It was only the second game of the season for Portmore after their scheduled encounter was postponed last week due to the threat of rain, so Williams sought to take the positives from the result.

“This is our second game, our second draw, we would have loved to have gathered more points, but we are setting up ourselves for a push, the longer the season goes on,” he stated.

“A draw is a positive result and I think a clean sheet is also a positive result and that is something that we have to take away from this game,” he reasoned.

Linval Dixon, who took over the reins at Vere United ahead of the start of the season, said that there were hunting a positive result in this their third game of the campaign.

“We came here for a positive result, but I think our first half was much better than the second half because we should have scored in the first half, but we didn’t take the chances.”

Like Williams, the main area of focus for Dixon will be the performance of his players in front of goal.

“I think that is one of the major problems that we have, even coming from last season. We are not scoring enough goals. We defend well at times, but we are not taking our chances, so it’s something that we have to address and hopefully we can get better in that department the next game.”

Vere have now picked up two points from three games and Dixon is hopeful that three points will come from their next encounter.

“We know that we cannot draw all the games, we have to win games, so we have to score goals. So, we will definitely look at it very, very, seriously in training and hopefully get it right the next time.”

After a less than ideal pre-season, the former Reggae Boy is hoping that his players will play their way into fitness even ahead of the scheduled “World Cup” break.

“We are trying to get sharp in playing matches but when we get the opportunity to get the players 100 per cent how we want them physically and mentally, we will definitely do that.

“We know the break is coming and we want to make sure that we are in the thick of things during the break and we will be happy for it to get the players sharp for the restart,” he noted.

Both clubs remain in the bottom half of the table on two points each after match week three with Vere having played a game more than Portmore United.

— Dwayne Richards