Chelsea 2 Pompey 0 - Hughes answers his question

Last week Richard Hughes, in a fit of pique, came out to the media and publicly asked Harry Redknapp ‘What did I do to be axed’?
Well, Richard, its not so much what you do than what you don’t do. Yesterday at Stamford Bridge he answered the question for himself and everyone else, failing to put the ball in the back of the net when presented with a golden opportunity from a Wayne Routledge cross, thereby squandering a massive chance for Pompey to get something out of the match.
Harry noticed it, and made a point of publicly mentioning it. Touche.

Match Preview - Chelsea V Pompey

Second from bottom Pompey travel to run-away leaders Chelsea this Saturday, and looking at the Premiership table there’s only one result any credible pundit can predict. Chelsea have been machine-like in their efficiency this season and had effectively won the league by Christmas. However, the last 3 matches have shown serious signs of chinks in their armoury. The midweek home defeat to Barcelona followed an indifferent display against Colchester and a 3 – 0 thrashing by Middlesborough. The air of invincibility has gone, but are Pompey strong enough to capitalise on this? Redknapps rebuilt side havent gelled at all but maybe this will be the match when the new recruits start justifying Harrys faith in them; surely his judgement cant be as wrong as the performances have been recently suggesting (can it?).
Certainly we don’t want to see a winning Mourinho doing his sulky arrogant routine in the post match interview, his desperate bad-loser excuses are much more comical.
BBC have some good stats.

Positively 50 years ago today

Its 50 years since Portsmouth FC hosted the first ever league match to be played under floodlights. The Times have chosen to use this event to reinforce some negative stereotypes about Pompey, mentioning that we suffered a ‘familiar’ defeat on the night, focussing on the logistical problems, and generally making it seem that we wished we hadnt bothered. The Times didnt even get the date right, releasing the story 2 days before the 22nd February anniversary. Shoddy.
The Official Pompey site is neutral in its reporting of the anniversary.
So its left to me to be positive. In 1956 Pompey were one of the top clubs in the country, just a few years after winning 2 league championships in consecutive seasons, and only 10 years after handing back the FA Cup after having held it longer than any other club. Fratton Park was a high-profile venue to pioneer the first ever league match played under floodlights and this reflects the prestige of Pompey at the time. On the night Pompey missed the chance to go 4th in the league with a 2 0 defeat to high flying Newcastle. I feel better now.

Has Lua Lua earnt a payrise?

A couple of days ago LuaLua announced he wants a new contract. At the time Vital football interpreted this as he’ll stay at Pompey whatever, which seemed great news. But in light of the fact that he still has 18 months left on his contract Im now interpreting it as; LuaLua’s agent has told him that this is the best time to negotiate a payrise, as if Pompey go down there’ll be no chance of one.
Harry’s having none of it, and has deflected it nicely, though that hasn’t stop some of the rumour-mongers jumping to the conclusion that LuaLua is Tottenham-bound.Cheers LuaLua, you appear to be rocking the boat and jeopardising the team spirit for the sake of your own greed. Concentrate on keeping us up you dick.

Stats give hope for Pompey

Optimism is not high around Pompey, with our club stuck 2nd from bottom and Chelsea to play next. A defeat there would leave us having played 27, with a return of 18 points.
Not good, but last year West Brom had exactly the same games played and points total and were bottom of the Prem, and yet went on to escape the drop (thanks FrattonFaithful for the stats). They did it by winning 4, drawing 4 and losing 3 of their last 11 remaining fixtures.
Does that seem so impossible for Pompey to achieve? Looking at this list of remaining fixtures on Pompeys Official site, I can certainly see plenty of winnable games.
Maybe those who are calling for Pompey to sack Harry, just about guaranteeing relegation in the process, might do well to consider these stats, and get behind the club instead of undermining it.

Real Pompey fans do NOT want Harry sacked

Typically of the press they have seized upon a quote from Milan where he says
"I got text messages from supporters saying we should get rid of Alain [Perrin] and now I am getting messages saying we should sack Harry",
and have added their sensationalist spin so it now becomes ‘Fans want Pompey sacked’ by Ananova, or ‘Mandaric: Fans want Redknapp sacked too’ as the Pompey-hating rag also known as The Mirror spins it. The Guardian uses its journalistic licence to distort by inventing the fact that Milan has been ‘bombarded’ with texts. Even the BBC are billing it as a ‘text attack’. There is no basis for these claims.
Most Pompey fans I have spoken to, whilst some might have reservations about Harry, are currently 100% behind him and what he is trying to achieve. There will always be a minority of fans at every club who want the manager out, be it Man U, Liverpool or whoever. It is not impossible that Milan got half a dozen texts from a similar minority. That does not constitute a unanimous voice of Pompey at all. Milans comments have been grossly taken out of context by a sad hyena-like section of the media eager to lay into our currently vulnerable Portsmouth Football Club, and yes you do get to know who your friends are at times like these.

You've lost that loving feeling

Redknapps honeymoon period seems well and truly over. The Mirror, that bastion of anti Pompey sentiment, is reporting The Russian owner wants Redknapp Out at Pompey. Plenty of journalistic license being used there I suspect, but it is probable that our 2 co-chairman arent impressed with Redknapps results so far. Harry still has time to turn it round, and thats what we all want to happen, but its not getting any easier to believe it will. In response to questions about the new signings, Redknapps says he 'had to do something', but as none of them have hit the ground running, did he recruit wisely?
Also unimpressive all round is the fact that we've paid £500K to Silva to tear up his contract. He was a last minute so called 'bargain', bought on the eve of the season, and another who has gone on to cost us more in the long-run, financially and in results, than if we'd spent the going rate for a premiership striker in the first place.

Pompey 1 Man Utd 3

Another terrible result, but it has to be said that it was a fantastic first half display by Man U, and their finishing was top class.
There were signs of passion and commitment in the 2nd half from Pompey, which is always heartening to see, but we still dont look dangerous in front of goal. As The Guardian mentions, we now have a fortnights break in which we need to get it right.
A worrying post match realisation is that the 9 new signings have not made a particularly positive impact, and it is tempting to wonder if we would have done better without them. Apart from maybe Kiely, none of them have added anything to the side, and I just hope that they will start contributing soon as we really dont want to have to rebuild the side again this summer.

Match Preview - The Uriah Rennie Show

There are not many talents in football who can guarantee a full house more than Uriah Rennie. A star performer of great stamina and the ability to turn the course of a match late in the game, we’re all looking forward to seeing this legend in action at Fratton Park on Saturday.
His recent form has been a bit patchy, but we all know what he is capable of; his match winning decisions in favour of media-friendly corporate clubs is second-to-none.
Rennie will preside over 2 teams with very different agendas. The 3 points for Portsmouth are more important this time than the kudos of having got one over Man U. The Reds could do with a result to remain on target for 2nd place in the league. But you don’t want to hear about that. Rennie is in town, it’ll be an event to recall to the grandchildren one day, so sit back and savour.

A whisper of discontent

A run of defeats always makes the cracks in a club appear, cracks that would otherwise be smoothed over when things are going well.
A niggle doing the rounds recently is that Harry Redknapp favours his signings and wont play Perrins signings, and that this is more down to egotistical reasons than the players merits.
Now Priske has come out and said the same things some of the fans are thinking.
I would like to think that Harry is acting in the best interests of PFC, and not his own ego, but like all things in football it only really matters whether we’re winning or not. If we don’t start winning this issue could be the one that defines Redknapps second spell at Pompey.

Newsnow here we come

Those awfully nice people at Newsnow have given the greenlight to this site, and have agreed to publish some future Heaven's Light Our Guide articles on their site. A cause for celebration(thats a novelty this season!) Thanks and Cheers to Newsnow!

Pompey chants

Those who remember standing on the terraces at Fratton Park will enjoy this fantastic listing of Pompey chants compiled by Brian and William Fellows on Pompey-fans.com. Top one gents - hadnt realised just how many songs used to get sung, and cant think of any songs you've missed. Reading through them all bought back many great memories of a time when there was a healthy smidgeon of anarchy in the air on matchdays. By 'eck, those were the days!

Nice one Lua Lua

Sky are reporting that Lua Lua wants to go to Spurs.
Is it asking to much for him to keep his mouth shut? We pay him thousands, we let him go off to Africa when we really need him, we pander to his sulks and select him when he really deserves to be dropped. And he rewards us by completely undermining our faith in him. Its fine for him to think it, to plan it even. But to announce it to the press? Im not impressed. 10 out of 10 for thoughtlessness.

Newcastle 2 Portsmouth 0

Can it get any worse. Another defeat, another terrible performance and to top it off, the sight of the self-obsessed, personality- challenged, Alan Shearer breaking a club record, then playing it up to be a national event. Or international event even, as the ChinaDaily thought it important enough to headline. Dont remember too many comments from them when Guy Whittingham had that record breaking season. Its all in the way you hype it.

As for the match itself, even Pompeys official site admits that its a blow to our hopes of avoiding the drop. The Independent, and the rest of the national press , when they werent stroking Shearers oversized ego, were totally dismissive of Pompey.
And for the record, Portsmouth and England's Peter Harris scored 208 goals for Pompey, outstripping Jackie Milburn and Alan Shearer. And do we go on about it every week? They dont know what real legends are up there.

Pompey 1 Bolton 1

Another match that Pompey deserved to win but didnt. Although some, including The Times, see the performance, particularly Alessandro's, as reason for optimism Im afraid Im starting to worry. We really needed 3 points last night, and the bottom line is that we didnt acheive it. Harry sounded equally disappointed.

Match Preview - Pompey V Bolton

This is the time to be playing Bolton - their best players are out injured or out in Africa. Only 3 points will do tonight. I dont want to hear any problems about gelling.
The BBC provide the matchstats.

Pompeys transfer deadline spree

Pompey have added well regarded Argentinian playmaker Andres D'Alessandro to the ranks. Sounds very exciting if we can get the best out of him, as this BBC profile of Alessandro explains. He is the 9th Portsmouth signing in this January transfer window - incredible.
A few departures have helped balance this including John Viafara to Sociedad and Vukic to Partizan Belgrade.
A few more deals that werent completed before the deadline including Benni McCarthy (ambitious!), Diawara of Senegal (I would have liked Pompey to add another solid defender), and the exit of Matthew Taylor to Spurs (who might well come in useful here).