UK Football

By Neil Maidment

LONDON, April 5 (Reuters) - Portsmouth manager Harry Redknapp said he was worried over who was going to score for them after they beat West Bromwich Albion 1-0 to reach the FA Cup final for the first time since 1939 on Saturday.

Portsmouth won their semi-final at Wembley with a 54th minute goal from Nwankwo Kanu against his old club.

Redknapp said that without cup-tied striker Jermain Defoe, who has scored eight goals since arriving at Portsmouth from Tottenham Hotspur in January, he was not sure who was going to be their match-winner.

"I didn't think we were overflowing with goals. We've relied on Defoe to score and of course he was not here today," he told a news conference.

"Kanu hadn't scored for a while, Milan Baros is yet to score for us and the likes of Lassana Diarra and Papa Boupa Diop are not goalscorers.

"We had a couple of chances to finish it and I thought we needed a second, but standing on the touchline I always think it has to be something special to beat (keeper) David James."

Redknapp, who was a teenager at Upton Park but did not play when West Ham United won the Cup in 1964, said he was delighted that Portsmouth had reached the final -- his first as a player or manager.

"It's great for the fans, they can look forward to another day at Wembley, its great for a club like Portsmouth to get to a cup final. We now have a fantastic chance of winning it."

West Brom manager Tony Mowbray, disappointed at his team's narrow defeat said: "We play like that most weeks, we have scored so many goals this season, so I was disappointed we did not threaten their goal more."

West Brom, currently fourth in the Championship, are chasing promotion back to the Premier League this season after two seasons in the second tier and if they win their game in hand they can go top on goal difference.

Defeat to Portsmouth means that West Brom cannot repeat their unique achievement of winning promotion and the FA Cup in the same season as they did in 1931, but winning promotion and reaching the semi-final would still be a major achievement in Mowbray's second season at The Hawthorns.