Sunday 30 September 2007

Did We Play Well?

Turning to the papers to try and get a decent overview of yesterday's game and this is what I found.
The Guardian/Observer- go in with the freakish result angle- and claims the first half was sleepy- which was not the impression that I got listening to The Quay
The Times also said that the first half lacked incident- so maybe the Quay were getting carried away.
But, and this is for the third week running, The Telegraph write about the match that I thought I was listening to- acknowledging that Pompey annihilated Reading in the first half.
The Mail also acknowledge Pompey's attacking flair with the line
"dreaming of Europe again after a spectacular attacking display from their men of Africa."
(... liked that)
- and this view then balanced out the perfectly fair observations about the poor defensive displays and the odd result. (It doesn't seem right calling the Mail balanced)
The Express is perfunctory in their assessment.
The Sun has a great slide-show- picture 10 being my favourite.
The Independent think that the first half was pedestrian- and this from a journalist who says that this could have been a rugby score- funny one that- shame it was a line that I heard used in about a dozen places.

....but this man (familiar to anyone who regularly uses Rivals) says exactly what I want to hear- and has put me in a much much better mood.

Well I guess there has to be questions about our defensive performance-but any team that scores 7 goals must be getting something right. Harry's rebuilt the midfield that kept us up 2 seasons ago and took to us the brink of a UEFA spot last season and I got the impression from what I heard on the radio that yesterday , as far as attacking goes, it clicked into place and Reading just could not cope. So I watched MOTD last night hoping for some analysis-and all I got was the cynical Lawrenson dismissing the game as a freak result. If anyone hasn't seen the goals MOTD's coverage can be seen here. It does not include his dismissive comments.

Most of the stuff I found here is from the national media- so you can get it all from NewsNow- but hopefully there will more stuff from blogs and so on later in the day, stuff like the video the Reading fan filmed yesterday in the Milton End- which I posted yesterday and which made me laugh a lot.

Saturday 29 September 2007

James Saving the Penalty

Harry's View from Sky.

Friday 28 September 2007

A few Reading Previews (and some barrel scraping).

This Is Harry on Reading- I think it's a syndicated story.
This Is Coppell talking about Saturday's game.
Here is someone from Vitalfootball really looking forward to Saturday's game.
This is an appeal from North Devon for their Pompey supporters club.
This is old news about the Nigeria squad- but I quite like it that Kanu has been called up and Yakubu hasn't - though that probably suits Everton- so maybe I don't like now I've thought about it.
Nothing to do with football really but it's about one of our players - this story is from the News.
Here's a thread from a Sunderland board all about the bloke with the bell. (It's been a bit quiet today)

Thursday 27 September 2007

Bit Of A Mixed Bag Today

Here is a view of Pompey's physical strength from a Reading coach.
Here is Harry issuing a warning to Muntari about his discipline- from the Mail.
Here is an Arsenal fan's view of Harry's view of Arsenal (if you see what I mean) which he gave in the Sun.
Here is an article about Shaka H. from a paper in Trinidad and Tobago.
This is from the Blackpool Gazette- it's about Harry's hopes For David Nugent- and is a match report from Tuesday's game.
This is Harry's view of the season so far- from the Independent

If you scroll down to yesterday you can find a link to that report that said that Fratton Park has the third best atmosphere. The poll prompted loads of articles- most which just repeat what the poll said- but the writer of this blog gets very angry in what I thought was a cracking, though bizarre, rant. It's a poll- a measure of what people think and it does not strike me as odd that most British football fans might be more familiar with Fratton Park or St James Park than with the intensity of the Genoa derby. What he should do is copy the poll and then go out to some high street somewhere and ask the same questions and then he can shout at anyone who fails to mention Borussia Dortmund at home or a Greek Derby. It is a cracking blog though.

Wednesday 26 September 2007

Fratton Park. Third Best Atmosphere In Drivers Jonas Poll

Property consultants Drivers Jonas ran a poll in which Fratton Park was voted as having the third best atmosphere at a football ground- better than Barcelona's and Newcastle's. Not that I go to Fratton Park that often- but I don't think the atmosphere is as good as it use to be - though it's still a lot better than most places. I do however think that at the few away games I've been to it's the Pompey Fans that create the atmosphere-(White Hart Lane last season being the exception).
Sometimes though it's impossible to create an atmosphere, even with a few thousand people singing Blue Army the Emirates was still like a church.
You can read the whole report by following the link at the bottom of their page. Funnily enough Fratton Park does not rate too highly in the list of stadiums with best bars, best food and best transport.

Mainly Burnley Pompey Reports

A few match reports from last nights game.
The Times report is here.
The Telegraph report is here
The Sun are mixing their metaphors here (with match ratings)
The Mail report is here- with a great photo of Mendes
The Express is here
The News has Cotterill's view here , Nugent talks about handball here Harry's view here and a match report
here
I think this is a syndicated article- I'm not sure where it is originally from but I think it's the one that crops up on ESPN and some other Murdoch sites. It has Harry's view of Nugent
This is from Vitalfootball
..and the official site has three articles on the match in their news section

And here are a couple of other things.
This is a preview of last night's match- from a Burnley fans' site- I just thought it was pretty good-they've made a real effort.
Here's a rumour about Mendes going to Villa from Vital Football.
And I've got another blog which is about other football stuff I find -and like-and some of it is about Pompey.

Tuesday 25 September 2007

Mostly Burnley Previews

Got a good feeling about tonight-and I reckon that if Matty T. is playing then he's a good shout for first scorer-anyway enough of my inane guessing.
This article about tonight's game has been syndicated everywhere but I quite like 4-4-2 so I'll post their version.
This is also a syndicated article about Kanu's contract- It is pretty much the same one as I posted yesterday-but I'll post it again.
I have not really looked at this blog-but it might be interesting-what is more interesting is the BBC article that he links to about Pompey's African players- so click on that.
This is a great article from the Lancashire Post, about tonight's game and focuses on Burnley's manager Steve Cotterill and his friendship with Harry
..and this from the same paper gives Harry's view of Cotterill and Burnley.
This is a preview of tonight's match from Burnley's official site.
This about tonight's game from The News.
Here is a pretty good preview of tonight's match from Vital Football.
This is an overview of the whole Carling Cup - it looks like like it's written by a bookmaker-but it talks up Pompey's chances.
One thing I've noticed is that a lot of sites post stories that come directly from the official site- which I imagine most of you read- I'll try not to post too much stuff that has been recycled from the OS but apologies if that is what I've done.

Just got my ticket for Fulham- which will be my third away game for the season-which I guess would be a reasonable level of commitment if I went to home games-but I rarely do ( I live in Cambridge-
poor excuse I guess -I know that some people travel from Scotland to Fratton Park). Anyway looking forward to it. A win on Saturday plus a good win tonight and the team will be going to Fulham- a team that leaks goals- feeling pretty up-beat about their away form.

Monday 24 September 2007

More Pompey-Blackburn Reports.

As I said yesterday-I've just noticed that a lot of these reports are syndicated so sorry if I post the same one twice.
The Telegraph- is full of praise for Davis. 'Twas a good report again I thought.
The Scottish Daily Record sees the game slightly differently-(I think that is a syndicated report)
The Guardian also rates Davis' performance.
The Sun makes Distin Man of the Match- they also have my favourite photo of the match.
The Mirror don't really single out short-'ouse Davis and instead put our success down to having "six footers galore". Bit of an odd report- maybe the journalist is a bit short or something.
The Times has match ratings- I thought this one made good reading.
The Independent praises Campbell-by calling him "Northern Rock"-which is a rubbish metaphor.
The Express has this story about Kanu's contract.
...scroll down to find the reports that I posted yesterday.

Sunday 23 September 2007

Some Pompey Blackburn Match Reports

Great Day-Great Day...I think that is a huge result for us- and I'm celebrating by listening to the Broken Family Band really loud*
Anyway who cares what I'm up to...here are some of the first match reports I've found (a lot of these are syndicated so I'll try to avoid posting the same one twice.)
Here is one with an old photo of Kanu-that's lazy journalism that is.
This one from ESPN-It's the same one as Sky and the Times is running, but this one has a great photo of Kanu running through the Blackburn Defence. It has also added some comments from Harry.
This one is by the BBC - and guess what - we got the result because they were tired- (and Liverpool were resting players, and Man Utd. are lacking a natural goal scorer etc. etc.)
Here is the Mail saying the same thing- (though, to be honest, in the whole scheme of things I have a whole bunch of other reasons to dislike the Mail)
Here's a short one from The Telegraph- but it has a quote from Harry. (You have to scroll down for it).
This one is from VitalFootball
And this is from the official site.
..and to finish here's an article in Today's Independent about Harry.

Unfortunately I tried to listen to the Quay's coverage-via the official site-but it wasn't working-(and that is something I pay for so they really ought to sort it out). Luckily someone called "pompeytic" pointed out on rivals that BBC Radio Lancs were broadcasting it on line -so he is my hero for the day. As a bonus-it was really decent coverage-their focus was on Blackburn-but they were full of praise for Pompey- and from what I heard we deserved our victory-with Diop, Muntari and Davies being dominant. The pundit had some great lines "Davies is playing with a cigar in his mouth" and he described Tugay as "the Mercurial Turk". I hope they are covering the Burnley Game.

*I go to a stupid amount of gigs for a middle aged man- probably seen about 50 0r 60 bands this year- and the Broken Family Band are certainly on my shortlist for gig of the year- if you don't know them listen to "You're Like A Women" from the L.P. "Balls".

Saturday 22 September 2007

Today is mainly Pompey-Blackburn Previews

Here's a preview of tomorrow's match-which is in part from a Blackburn perspective
...and here's a preview- from a Blackburn newspaper I think-focusing on Harry's view of Blackburn player Ryan Nelsen.
Here is one of VitalFootball's many polls-this one about how points do you think Pompey will get in the next six games.
This is another preview-but the main focus is Harry's view of our midfield. Good reading this one.
This is about a Pompey player going on loan to Bournemouth.
Here is another preview of tomorrow's match which is very much to the point.
..and here is the BBC's preview of the same match.
Here is a short piece about who is going to take our penalties.
This is a BBC blog with a not hugely interesting in-sight into Grant's time at Pompey.
Here is an article looking at whether Taylor should return for the Blackburn game. It also claims that we played 4-3-4 against Liverpool- so no goalkeeper then.

Friday 21 September 2007

Blackburn Previews, Grant and a Book

Article about Matty T. and a preview of Sunday's game.
This is someone's personal view about Avram Grant and Pompey.
Scottish fitba- reflect on Harry's job security.
The Sun-claim that Jamie Redknapp is being lined up to help Grant at Chelsea- it's a bit tentative I suppose-but what with him being Harry's son it's another part of Pompey's involvement in the whole Chelsea drama/nonsense. (and Avram Grant looks like a cab driver)
This is an article from a Zambian blog about Collin's Mbesuma- a character whose slight role in Pompey's history I always found rather odd.
This is not really about Pompey at all-it's a blog about Chelsea-but he is doing what I am trying to do - and he is doing a lot better I suppose, ( and that is almost the only nice thing I will ever say about anything to do with Chelsea).
More importantly here is Harry talking about the Blackburn game.
Less importantly here is Harry talking about some other club.
Here's another preview of the Blackburn game, and here is Krancjcar's view of the upcoming game- both from the same- rather good -site.
And from the same site here's a poll on what formation Pompey should play.
This is a podcast of an interview with Chuck Culpepper who wrote this book about Pompey. (Follow the links for the interview). I have not read the book-but I will, and I have not listened to all of the interview-but I will.

Thursday 20 September 2007

Quiet news day-so here's some pictures of footballers wives.

This is where the real footballing news is...
A short web piece about where Linvoy will fit in.
Harry is moaning about the international break- apparently he was fuming- which is not as bad as being in a rage I suppose.
This is a web opinion piece about Mendes' role at the club.
Here is a very short piece , originally from the Times I think, about Distin wanting to get into the French squad.

Not much else today- most of the news today is going to be about what's going on Chelsea - my view is that it's bad news if you've any time for Chelsea and it's good news if you like entertaining football. I have not included any stories about Avram Grant taking over there- despite the Pompey connection-because it'll be all over the news and I really don't care too much.
Instead here's a blog with lots of pictures of footballer's wives- including Christian Karembeu's who apparently scouts for Pompey.

Tuesday 18 September 2007

PompeyRodney, Linvoy, Zombies, New Scout and MySpace.

Fairly quiet on the news front. The News ran this poll about Matty Taylor. For what it's worth-I think he should be first choice as left midfield-with the exception of the game against Arsenal- we have always played better as a team when he's on the pitch. Don't know why that it is- maybe it's something to do with balance- (though I'm never sure exactly what pundits mean when they say that), and , of course, he scores a lot of goals.
You have to scroll down to the Pompey section in this Times round up of Premiership news. Peter Storrie's remit at the FA has been expanded-and he is a comedian to boot.
This story is about the appointment of a new scout by Paul Hart. Seems like he is experienced and decent - but to be honest that is not the most satisfying thing about reading the story.
Yesterday the Express ran with the story that Harry is interested in bringing Crouch back-but I guess most of you already know that.
VitalFootball have a couple of stories. This- based on an article from the official site is about Linvoy's ambition to get back in the squad., and this opinion piece is about whether Harry should try to get Crouch back. I think he should just so he can sell him for a third time.
There isn't much need for me to give any more links to reports from the Liverpool game but I'm going to do one more- partly because it's a pretty fair description of the game and partly because it's written by someone who likes horror films-"particularly ones with Zombies in"- Good man methinks for being so precise about his passion.
Because it's quiet on the news front here's a link to Sulley Muntari's MySpace page, and here's Matty Taylor's, ( I think they are both for real) and here's Kanu's- which is about the charity work he does. ( Be warned-it plays music as soon as it opens)

Monday 17 September 2007

Tuesday 18th.

Start with this- another report on Saturday's game-this one by a Liverpool fan- who like a lot of Liverpool fans is pretty generous in his assessment of Pompey. He acknowledges how good the atmosphere can be at Fratton Park-so reciprocally I will acknowledge his nice turn of phrase.
Here's a transfer rumour.
Here's Harry full of praise for Distain and Campbell
Here's some photos from Saturday's game- mainly from a Liverpool perspective-and some digitally watermarked- but a couple I liked.
And here's David James on the Women's World Cup-from his always readable Guardian Blog.
Here's a poll from Vital Football about how many games will you get to this season.

More Predictable Monday Morning Match Reports. Pompey 0- Liverpool 0

Daily Mail same as yesterday-Liverpool dropping 2 points is their theme.
This from the Irish Independent is the most irritating - Hands up all those at Fratton Park who bought their tickets because they wanted to see Liverpool's stars play.
The Guardian think that the story is all about Liverpool as well.
The Independent has both managers moaning away. Surely their job is to manage and not make excuses.
I've included this story from an Asian Paper because its focus is on Pompey and MotM Diop. I thought his performance was the best thing to come out of the match.
A Liverpool Fan Site is happy to point out how impressive Pompey's defence was.

...and because I'm now bored with the mostly predictable match reports - here's some Pompey videos that I like- and which you may have seen before.

Sunday 16 September 2007

Portsmouth 0 - Liverpool 0. What the Sunday papers (and the bloggers) say.

As any Pompey fan knows- whatever the result and however well we play against Liverpool most papers and pundits only ever really want to talk about Liverpool. So as usual there are quite a few match reports which bang on about Benitez's rotation policy and Liverpool players having just come back from international duty.
So here is the Sunday Times' view from the Kop:
The Sun is slightly more balanced:
The Guardian/Observer seem keen to point out that Liverpool struggled to carve out chances before mentioning that Pompey made the better chances-well Farringdon types-maybe it was because they played slightly better football on the day:
The Mail claim that Reina made an exceptional save- but then later write that it was an easy save. Nice photos though:
The Independent:
The Liverpool Echo is much better in it's assessment of the game- pointing out that Pompey had the better chances. (Why can't the News' coverage be as good as this)
I also liked this blog- from Malaysia I think-which also acknowledges that Pompey might be a good team:
..and perhaps there is a pattern developing because this blog-which is a pretty decent, and funny, round up of all the weekend's Premiership games also seems happy to give credit where it is due.
However-for me the best match report came from the Telegraph's Patrick Barclay who seems to understand that his readers are not all Liverpool fans and as such is as happy to write about what this result means to Pompey-as well as what it means to Liverpool.

For what it's worth- even though it wasn't a really great game I thought that Pompey shaded it. Liverpool's team selection did make it easier for us- but Pompey's job was to beat whatever team Benetiz decides upon - (which he probably did in one of the few breaks he takes from his endless whinging- and I thought Harry R was bad for getting his excuses in early and often). I thought Papa Diop had a good debut and the defence were pretty solid- Hreidarrsson and Johnson seem more settled than they perhaps have been in some recent games. I do wish that Matty Taylor had been on the pitch- perhaps having him on the bench affected the outcome of this game more than Torres and Gerrard being on the bench - he would have probably scored the penalty and we may have taken the three points.

Saturday 15 September 2007

15th Sept.

Article from Dorset Daily Echo about Bournemouth's on loan goalkeeper Begovic- and the Pompey-Bournemouth connection:
http://www.thisisdorset.net/display.var.1690986.0..php

Article From The Guardian about ex Pompey player Gary O' Neil - where what the headline says doesn't quite tally with what Gary O' Neil says:
http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,2169714,00.html

I like this website's Pompey coverage - comprehensive list of which Pompey players had to work during the international break:
http://www.scotland-mad.co.uk/news/loadgnrl.asp?id=352473&teamno=424

From last week- Pompey are after a couple of Millwall's youngsters:
http://www.eatsleepsport.com/articles/620992.html

Entertaining article about the Floodlights at Fratton Park
http://www.portsmouth.vitalfootball.co.uk/sitepage.asp?a=82224

Friday 14 September 2007

Today's Links

Stats from a Liverpool fan's blog-You have to wade through the adverts but the stats are quite interesting.
http://kopnews.blogspot.com/2007/09/portsmouth-v-liverpool.html

Article about Gareth Barry- including what Harry R. thinks about him- from the Express (which claims to be the World's Greatest Paper no less)
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/19117/Barry-s-payback

Not sure why I found this interesting-but is there a record for Duffy being the most loaned player
http://www.clarets-mad.co.uk/news/loadfeat.asp?cid=ED35&id=310548

This Website made Utaka Player of the Month.
http://www.portsmouth.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=82581

I don't care about this stuff-but it's about bent deals and mentions Harry R.
http://www.glory-glory.co.uk/forums/thread/205445.aspx