Bad day at the Office for Pompey

OK so we got beat badly, well thrashed infact. Im not as concerned as I would be if I was a fan of alot of the other Premiership clubs - Tottenham, Newcastle to name but 2 who’s expectations for this season aren’t yet being met, and whose concerns are maybe a bit more longterm.
A positive for me is the reaction to Man City’s win. For Mark Hughes it was the perfect day, his best performance as a manager, and he cant keep his cheesy smile off his face. Man City player Ireland now thinks they’re invincible , they all seem to see it as a benchmark; beating us has set the standard. Well it is a benchmark for Pompey too in a way. A benchmark in how we are perceived. The last time we were well thrashed was 21/1/2006 at Birmingham, and rather than being hailed worldbeaters as Man City are right now, the Brummies got few plaudits as to thrash us wasn’t seen as particularly special or unusual. Man City’s coming in their pants over wopping us is actually a great compliment, though unintentional on their part and not very enjoyable on ours.

Terry to face Pompey after red card ban lifted

John Terrys 3 match ban imposed after his red card on Saturday has been cleared by the FA after Chelsea were today successful in their appeal that it was a wrongful dismissal.
Terry's foul was a cross between a rugby tackle and a clothesliner and he made no attempt to win the ball, just cynically taking the attacker down - its cheating, its not football.
For me giving a red card rather than a yellow was far from a clearcut error of judgement by the referee Mark Halsey, so I feel its pretty shabby that the FA have chosen to overrule him. It not only undermines this referee, but all refs, who must now fear that all their decisions are fair game to debate and appeal, and who can no longer count on any level of support from their employers.
The 3 matches Terry can now play are vrs Merch Utd, Portsmouth and Stoke.
Was this irregular decision made so that the weekends Premier League showcase match V ManUre is played with as many 'stars' involved as possible? Is this sport or entertainment?

Pompey 2 Middlesborough 1

Relief all round that Pompey managed to get the 3 points. Despite dominating Boro, against the run of play Pompey fell a goal behind and Ive witnessed many a weekend ruined by that once-familiar storyline. However this seasons squad has been built with maximum flexibility at the forefront of the thinking, as Neville Dalton on Fratton Faithful observes. And this paid dividends when a bit of halftime tactical jiggery pokery by Harry provided the platform for Pompey to twice breach Middlesboroughs resilient defence for a well deserved victory (despite what Southgate might spin it to seem).
Pompeyrama’s view is here, Boromania’s is here, and a possibly impartial Setanta view with full match-stats is here.

Pompey V Boro Preview

Submitted by Pompeyboy @ Pompeyrama
Middlesbrough return to Fratton on Saturday, where hopefully they will find a very different Pompey side they managed to beat 1-0 last time. We also lost 2-0 at their place, thanks mainly to Pompey being in Wembley mode at the tail end of last season.
The Blues haven't scored against Boro since the fantastic 4-0 away win from August 2006, this time they will face the threat of the new strike force and probably the new 3-5-2. They will however be travelling south high in confidence, having made a good start this year; beating Spurs and Stoke with a reverse at Liverpool to bag 6 points.
Nadir Belhadj is expected to make his debut after starring for Algeria in his country's 3-2 win over Senegal last weekend. David James, Glen Johnson, Jermain Defoe, Lassana Diarra, Hermann Hreidarsson, Younes Kaboul and Ben Sahar have also all been away on international duty this week.
I'm predicting the first Fratton win of the season, score: 2-0. Pompeyboy @ Pompeyrama

Personally, whilst not wanting to go overboard after our last win, Middlesborough are a bit ordinary, and we do owe them, so Ill go for 3-0. For a decent Boro perspective preview try Boromania. HSBGuzzler

Heavens Light Our Guide is back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Two years have passed since this site last submitted any new articles, and taking a glance at those 2006 postings shows how much Pompey have progressed in that time, not that we need reminding.
The motivation for writing for this site in this period of Pompey success has been strangely less for me than when we were up against it. Maybe thats true of actually supporting the club aswell, certainly for a generation or 3 of us who stuck with Pompey out of sympathy, a bloodyminded enjoyment of being the underdog and a hatred of glory-hunters, and who find this sudden success a bit alien. Of those, many are still not sure if it feels comfortable to be supporting one of the best teams in the country, a team that brings home silverware, and regularly beats the clubs with fans that have in the past laughed at us, lorded it over us, and condescended to us on the rare occasions they actually remembered we existed.
But actually it is lovely, especially to be shoving it up the arses of the plastic fans of those clubs who attract all the glory hunters, and seeing them bamboozled in the face of a proper football club with proper football history and tradition playing proper good football in front of proper football fans with proper passion. Long may it continue. Now that Im starting to get my head around the idea of us being good, hopefully this site will see some more articles at last, motivated now by the joy of being a Pompey fan rather than the anger. Play up Pompey.

Spurs 2 Pompey 1 - Jols smugly philosophical

Its easy to be philosophical when an injustice has just gone your way and won you the game.
Martin Jols reaction to the incorrect penalty decision that cost Pompey the game was; ‘You win some you lose some’.
Cheers for your support and your sympathy Jol, we’ll remind you of those smug words next time you have a bleat, and hopefully shove them right back frrom where they came.
For the second season in succession a refereeing mistake has lost us the match at White Hart Lane. Highly irritating, especially when Spurs looked so ordinary and undeserving of their win, except in the eyes of their blinkered fans. Personally if I was them I would be embarassed rather than smug, but maybe thats why we dont like Spurs and their ilk.

Man City 0 Pompey 0: Is Dermot on his final public warning?

Man City 0 Pompey 0
Could well have been 3 points for Pompey had Irish ref Dermot Gallagher not made 2 massive errors.
Missing a blatant City handball in the penalty area was bad enough, but that poor decision was nothing compared with his earlier failure to send off Ben Thatcher after he’d knocked Mendes out cold with a running fore-arm smash that Rollerball Rocco would have been proud of (though surely have been disqualified for).
Gallagher was due for retirement last season, and apparently has only been kept on due to the lack of quality refs coming through the ranks. If this is the best they can come up with then the mind boggles at how shit the rest must be. And what about the 4th official? And the third and the second come to that. What a waste of space they are, if they couldn’t influence the terrible decision to let Thatcher remain on the pitch.
Harry is quite rightly calling for a punishment for Thatcher, but ridiculously it seems this is not straightforward or guaranteed to be successful.
Browsing the net, I stumbled upon a 2001 Dermot Gallagher demotion article. In that instance it was Man Utd that were the team wronged by Gallaghers refusal to send someone off, and we all know there’s 1 rule for Man Utd and one rule for the rest. Will the FA prove this once again, or will they show some consistency and consign him to the referees room 101?