PORTLAND United’s 5-2 win at Blandford United left manager Kyle Critchell with a bittersweet reaction to the Blues’ performance.

Portland found themselves 1-0 down thanks to Elliot Manson’s opener, before George Stuttle and Jamie Symes goals put the islanders ahead.

Freddie Beale and Josh Camp strikes made it 4-1 in the second half before a Riley Greenwood-Neate own goal handed the Royals a consolation.

James Coat grabbed his first Portland goal with a fine low finish and there was still time for the teenager to blaze a penalty over.

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Speaking to Portland’s media team, Critchell said: “We looked very lethargic to start with and didn’t really get to the standards I set us and the players set themselves.

“But it is pre-season, we are working throughout the week extremely hard. The lads are putting in a lot of effort so I’ll put it down to tired legs.

“Some poor decisions at times and we weren’t really playing to the shape that we wanted to play to.

“Nevertheless, we’ve scored five goals so we’ll take the positives out of the game, we maybe didn’t start as quickly as I would’ve liked.”

Critchell then went into more depth over his frustrations.

He said: “We’ve got some really talented players and games like this are difficult because they’re not probably games that we’re going to play in the Wessex League.

“I’m not being demeaning to Blandford, I thought they were fantastic in terms of their effort, their press. They’re very well organised.

“It’s just sometimes you’re given more time on the ball than you’d anticipate and we get into the process of just playing in areas you don’t need to, rather than having a reason behind what we’re doing, a methodology.

“Why are we going from one area to another area? Because we’re trying to create space.

“The longer the game went on, the more tired they got and we didn’t. It’s just a shame we didn’t do that earlier.”

Portland next take on Poole this Tuesday, with the fixture being moved to Shaftesbury.

Of his playing personnel for the friendly, Critchell added: “At the moment, none that I know that are unavailable.

“We’ve got Connor Callow who’s still struggling with his abductor and Jacob Coombs is struggling with his thigh.

“I think we’ll be strong going into Poole. Like I said to the players, it’s going to be a very different game and we’re going to be on the receiving end of a lack of possession.

“We’re going to have to be incredibly organised and resilient. We also want to be forward-thinking, we want to be positive.

“We don’t just want to sit in for 90 minutes and not have a go, so the timing of that is going to have to be correct.

“It’s a game we need to have at this stage of our development in pre-season.”