Bothroyd benefits from Bellamy labour

Portsmouth 0 Cardiff City

Bothroyd hounded the hosts defence all afternoon at Fratton Park (GETTY IMAGES)

Jay Bothroyd stole Craig Bellamy's thunder as he helped Cardiff go joint top of the Championship. The south coast was the second stop on Bellamy's roadshow after last week's emotional homecoming.

And the loan player from Manchester City found out just how tough it is going to be in the lower divisions as he was bustled out of the game for most of the 80 minutes he was on the pitch.

Not that he minded, however. He spent the whole time grinning like a youth player, shrugging his shoulders when the niggly Michael Brown got in his face or when the Portsmouth defender Carl Dickinson pushed him into the advertising hoardings.

Luckily for Dave Jones, the Cardiff manager, he had Bothroyd available as back-up. The striker put Hayden Mullins under pressure for his own goal, then had Bellamy to thank for drawing the home defence out of position for him to tap into an empty net.

Jones said: "I am pleased with what everybody did. Craig didn't have the best of games, because they were trying to mark him out all the time.

"But we have other players who can be dangerous. I thought Peter Whittingham was brilliant and the back four were immense. And Jay had a very good game, largely because we kept hounding them so he was able to get into scoring positions. We are not getting carried away, because there is a long, long way to go, but we are building something here.

"A few months ago we were in a similar situation to Portsmouth with only four subs. Now, thanks to the investment we are moving forward."

Ibrahima Sonko was at fault for Cardiff's second, but manager Steve Cotterill refused to single him out for blame. He said: "Ibrahima is not the best of footballers. If you are going to leave him to do a back-pass then things like that mix-up will happen. But he does other things that other players can't.

"They need to look out for him a bit, because he looks out for them big time. And if we had a big lump like Jay Bothroyd up front then suddenly Sonko's long balls up the pitch look a lot better."