Players' reputation has now stuck as Rowett hints at squad-building failures

That’s now one victory in their last 18 matches. Over the past two seasons, they’ve won 17 of 81 league fixtures. Of all of the clubs in England’s top four divisions, just Sheffield Wednesday have won a lower proportion and even they’re only one win behind City.

Whether they were inhibited by the importance of the game, whether their confidence has been drained by their desperate position and imminent relegation, or whether they could not understand how to put the gameplan into action, they produced a performance that did not reflect the significance of the fixture.

They lost any composure and quality they might have had. In the first period, surely one of the worst halves of football in any Championship match this season, they looked clueless.

Sky broadcasts more than 1,400 live matches across the Premier League, EFL and more with at least 215 live from the top flight alongside Formula 1, darts and golf.

Gary Rowett has wanted them to be more direct, but surely not like this, players aimlessly lumping the ball towards the channels – and often out of play – in the vain hope the willing Patson Daka might make something of it.

They weren’t much better when they did go short. The Fratton Park pitch looked in reasonable condition and yet you wouldn’t have known that from how City players bobbled passes behind and wide of their team-mates. Several times, they simply tripped over their own feet.

Their pass completion rate ended at 66 per cent. That’s down from an 81 per cent average this season. The only time it’s been lower is when they had 10 men at Birmingham.

Hamza Choudhury, brought into the midfield for some added bite, barely touched the ball. Abdul Fatawu spooned every cross out of play.

It wasn’t until Portsmouth took the lead that they created any decent chances, but come the final 10 minutes and added time, those dried up too.

Portsmouth and several other of City’s relegation rivals have, for all their struggles this term, remembered what it means to win and how to do it when it’s mattered.

This was a pitiful performance, played by a team for whom the concept of winning seems alien to them.

But even that is a more positive description than how this team will be remembered. A lack of composure and quality in decisive moments and matches are bad traits, but they are forgivable.

This team, no matter how many times their managers have defended them, will go down as the City side that didn’t care enough.

The reaction from Portsmouth fans to City’s performance is one of bemusement. They could not fathom the lack of urgency from a side that absolutely needed to win.

City supporters have garnered sympathy from across the football landscape for having these players represent their club.

Rowett has labelled questions around the squad’s attitude as an “easy” narrative, but the players simply haven’t done enough to swing it around and disprove the theory.

It’s not just the impressions they’re giving to those watching, but the statistics too. Seven different running stats flashed up during the broadcast coverage prior to kick-off and City ranked in the Championship’s bottom four for all of them, including last for sprints.

Choudhury’s back-and-forth with Portsmouth fans after he was substituted and Harry Winks’ heated argument outside Fratton Park are not signs of the passion that City fans crave, they’re players letting jibes get the better of them.

No matter what happens from here, this City team will go down as the side that didn’t care, simply because they’ve not done enough to debunk that opinion.

As the weeks have gone on, and City’s situation has become more and more wretched, Rowett has sprinkled in more and more tidbits that perhaps give an indication as to where he thinks it’s gone wrong for the club.

He has frequently pointed to the make-up of the squad, and that the profiles within the group may not be suited to a relegation battle because that’s not what they’ve been brought in for.

But he’s now making suggestions that the squad has been built poorly in general, whether for a survival fight or not.

His words on Daka were sympathetic, but suggested he feels the club have recruited poorly in forward areas.

“It’s a shame because Pato gets a couple of those chances,” he said. “He’s had a couple in the games before.

“He’s a great lad, he works incredibly hard, he presses, he shows energy, he shows drive, he shows desire, but you feel for him because those moments, if he could just find the corner…

“There are other players who have had those chances. It’s been a collective really. We talk about the quality of the squad, but if you look at the goalscorers in the team, it’s too low, certainly in forward areas.”

When it was put to Rowett that seven of the 11 starters at Portsmouth were in the team that won the Championship two seasons ago, he refuted the idea that there were any similarities because of the lost athleticism and physicality through the players who have moved on, and because certain players are now older.

He said: “If you look at the team that went up, there’s a lot of players missing from that, there’s a lot of athleticism and physicality missing. It’s a couple of years on as well.

“We’ve conceded a set-piece goal in the last five games. That’s been killing us in these tight games. We haven’t got our head on the ball in the opposite box.

“It’s the Championship. Unless you do the basics of the game, your quality doesn’t get a chance to shine or come out.”

Poor recruitment is a huge factor in City’s demise. For all the technical qualities in certain areas, they are gaping holes where other attributes are required. Rowett, perhaps to protect his own reputation, is now pointing out those more regularly.

There is still a chance for City to stay up. They do have to win all three games, which is a tall order. Never mind the fact they’ve only won one of their last 18, it’s been two years since they won three on the bounce.

Their best hope then is that Blackburn fail to beat Sheffield United next Wednesday and that Oxford lose one of their last three games. It’s unlikely, yes, but it’s not utterly far-fetched.

Or at least it wouldn’t be if it felt like they hadn’t given up. Rowett admitting he’s run out of words of wisdom suggests he does not know what to do to motivate this squad.

Jamaal Lascelles and a couple of others applauded, but most City players stood there with their hands on their hips. It seemed like they knew the season was over, and they knew they deserved some condemnation. In that moment, they accepted their fate as the jeers and chants rained down.

On that alone, it would be a surprise if they can motivate themselves for Tuesday’s game.

In 1903-04, Leicester Fosse finished bottom of the Football League’s second division but, as there was no third division at the time, they were re-elected and kept their place in the league. Perhaps, statistically, that’s the club’s worst-ever season.

But this torrid campaign surely deserves to take that title. Even if City win all three games, they cannot match the points tally of the only other side to be relegated to the third tier, who earned 52 points in 2007-08.

Three wins would see them equal the 50 points earned by the 1990-91 side that narrowly avoided the drop. But they were coming off the back of three successive bottom-half finishes in the second tier. They didn’t fall through the floor like this team have.

Barring a miracle, this is the season that will be remembered as their worst in the club’s history. More than that, it’s one of the biggest underperformances at any club in recent years.

Compared to the other sides in the division, this is a team that has been assembled at great cost and is paid handsomely. Yet they’ve been dreadful.

It’s a story that deserves answers. Those that have led the club to this point must come out and say plainly what they’ve got wrong. How can it ever be expected to get better if they don’t?