VectisSaint

No. AP was always focused on the League. The JPT and FA Cup were distractions and he wanted to instill a winning mentality - he has said this many times. The Cups helped do this, but the problem has been cup-tied players. I don't think results would have been any better if we had gone out of the cups earlier than we did.

Not a good day for Maths to day is it. 37+6=43. 54-43=11 :cool: However the good news is that if we beat Huddersfield we could be 8 points from the play-offs. That said, the play-offs went out of the window when we failed to beat Exeter.

He comes from Nigeria, not Pompey

Come on Tim, lets be 'aving you :-) We didn't get spanked on our own Turf last week. Today we beat the top team in the league on their patch and with no late goals. Humble Pie anyone?

Great stuff, looking forward to TT's posts later, he will be going daft about the late goals again. Ohh...

Are we talking football here or Coldplay?

What about Aldershot?

Maths not your strong subject, currently 17 points, Huddersfield 54, Saints 37 as it stands now

:confused:

More worried about TT than NC personally

He had his eyes closed again did he?

Hope we don't concede a late goal in the next 5 minutes

Where are they playing the League Cup this year then?

Tim, think you have missed the point though, no-one is demoralised by the defeat, AFAIK, except maybe you. In fact just the opposite, most people recognise how well we played, and the score line flattered the Skates. I think the problem you have with this match is that you over-hyped it (because it was Pompey). It was a cup game against opposition 2 divisions above us, and yet we should have won (if we had taken our chances in the first half when we were battering them). If we had lost to, say west Brom, you wouldn't have this attitude about it, yet they are 1 place lower in the pyramid. Unfortunately we didn't win, we lost, and in the cup it matters not a jot whether you lose 1-2 or 1-12, its still a loss. End of story. Now back to the bread and butter, we haven't got much to go for in the league this season but would be good to see us getting to 8th place now because that would represent a good run in, and we still have a day out at Wembley to look forward to. If we start shipping lots of late goals (and late means last 5 or 10 minutes) with the new players and this costs us wins then come back on here and say "told you so", and then you will have a valid point.

Whilst it may be interesting to work out who have been the players in our most successful team, it is based on history and would therefore not include any of our 5 recent signings. Yet presumably AP would consider he brought in these players to improve the team. So it is not a very useful guide to what will be our best team. Not suggesting all five will be our best players but Fonte for instance would be without a doubt.

Reading bewteen the lines, AP is saying Murty is finished (at Saints). Hopefully Connolly will really be back soon, we have missed him big time.

Sorry but our league season effectively ended when we did not win at Exeter and other results went against us. We have no realistic chance of making the play-offs. I was optimistic before Exeter but now it would need a miracle of Biblical proportions (or a few clubs going into Admin). We will do very well to finish 8th now.

I have to question whether playing Pulis. Molyneux and Forecast would strengthen the reserves, seems to me it would make it even weaker. Why are these players still around? If they are surplus to requirements and no-one else wants them why don't we pay up their contracts, at least they could go look for a club that way, or find a job.

Was discussing the matter earlier with Agent Orange (Ken Dullieu), we think between us we can shaft Pompey completely. Here's hoping anyway.

I think anyone who has signed this year will still be here next, they all signed up to the vision and knew full well that it might take 2 years to get promoted. The ones more likely to leave are Spiderman and Lallana (and possibly James) who are not newcomers.

RLL as opposed to RJGL

Not sure how KD's poor corner ability can be down to Pardew. Organisation of the defence and especially the goal area is the GK's responsibility. One of the reasons we get a lot of people back for corners is because everyone is crapping themselves when KD is facing them. That said, as I noted above, yesterday he was actually very good on corners at least once, it was so unusual that I was quite shocked. No-one doubts KD's loyalty. But loyalty doesn't make you the best, it just makes you loyal (some might say it means you have no ambition but thats an old argument of course).

You are joking I assume, the save from O'Hara's long range shot was terrific. People are raving about James' saves, but he only really made one, he lucked out with a couple of others and showed everyone that he can still be Calamity James. Really don't think KD could have done much about the goals, Quincy fooled him a bit for his goal but that to a large extent was down to some very clever play.

I was shocked yesterday when KD came out for a cross (corner?) and took it with aplomb. He showed he can do it, maybe he forgot where he was or something. It is so unusual for him to do this that it really stood out for me. Great shot stopper, probably one of the best. But like David James not good at other parts of his game, especially distribution. Always the same tactic, big boot down the middle to the head of RL, I wonder does he ever consider playing a short ball to one of the full backs not only to build from the back, but also to guarantee possession. Long boot down the middle gives us at best 50% chance of retaining possession, probably less. I don't suggest that you never do this, but some variety would help. Bart has better presence in the area, and is better at dealing with crosses. I don't think he is as good a shot stopper though.

Police seem to think it was all quite minor "whilst it was ugly at times, we do accept that, actually, the level of injuries that were caused and the level of damage that was caused was relatively minor." He added: "I'm not belittling anybody who got hurt or perhaps had a car damaged, but in terms of the scale of what happened and the way some people were talking before the game, I think it was a really good operation." Usually the OB will make the most of it, the headlines seem to exaggerate to make this into a story