Sheaf Saint

Nice one Jay. It's been too long since we've seen that, and it's more than welcome.

We lost our shape a bit when Claisie and Tadic went off, but we always looked to have a very limited Vitesse side contained. Peach of a finish from Pelle Finally a good penalty taken by Tadic Delightful little chip from Juanmi to Long for the 3rd, after Long had done his trademark charge through the defence to create panic that he does so well. Cedric looks a more than capable replacement for Clyne. Lots of positives to take from that. I can't really see Vitesse turning that scoreline over in the away leg so we should be comfortably through to the group stage. We march on!

Lovely little chip to Long from Juanmi there. Long maybe should have done better with the chance in the first instance but can't complain; his job is to cause havoc in opposition defences and he does it well.

You were saying......?

Fans doing us proud tonight.

WHU get pegged back to 2-2 and have their 3rd red card of the season!

Just quoting this so it cant be edited. Though a good point well made. Granty mentioned recently that the site is due an overhaul. I reckon this post should be on the banner!

Looks like Tadic has been practicing his spot-kicks over the summer break.

PENALTY!

Very impressed with Cedric so far, although tonight is hardly a fair test of his defensive capabilities.

Well that's not a bad way to open your account for the season is it!

Good on ya mate. Just over 10 years ago I was crying into my pint in a bar in Sheffield, being ribbed by a Pompey fan stood behind me while I watched Roy Keane sticking the boot in at the end of what would be the start of our fall from grace. These last 10 years have been a hell of a rollercoaster with some amazing moments (the JPT win, the demolition of Coventry to send us back to the PL, and shafting MAN U in their own back yard last season to name but a few), but tonight is the culmination of it all. Thank you Markus. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for rescuing us and laying the foundations to build something to be truly proud of.

WTF? I've just lgged on to Sportsmania to renew my subscription for tonight, and when I click their link to do that I just get a message saying "There are no products available to purchase. Please try again later". Anybody else had similar problems?

We just need you to start with your 17th place predictions and your insistence that we should have re-hired Glenn Hoddle in 2003 to complete the full house.

Completely disagree. When he played against Villa towards the end of the season he looked like he had come on leaps and bounds to me. Had no chance with Benteke's header, but didn't put a foot wrong otherwise. It's no coincidence that successive managers have obviously seen enough potential in him to keep him around so long, and from what I saw against Villa and according to reports on here of his performances in pre-season, he appears to be finally starting to realise that potential.

Hitting the post is not unlucky... it is missing the target.

When the 3rd one went in against Coventry in the last game of the 2011-2012 season (and to my shame I can't actually remember who scored it!) to put us out of sight and seal our promotion back to the PL, I screamed the house down and cried. My other half says she has never seen me display so much emotion in all the years we have been together.

Contrary to what everybody believes, he doesn't hold all of the cards in this situation. Let's remember, he violently assaulted a colleague. In any other walk of life that would be grounds for instant, summary dismissal and termination of contract. If I did it to one of my work colleagues, I would be out the door so fast my feet wouldn't touch the ground. Now, the club obviously didn't take this course of action at the time due to the fact that he, as our most expensive signing ever, represented too much of a financial investment to just cut their losses. They tried very hard to get somebody to take him off our hands so that we could recoup some of that investment, but he managed to screw up every opportunity he had at any other club and it became obvious that we would never get any kind of transfer fee for him. It seems to me that because of the passage of time since the incident with Fonte, the club may have felt that to just 'sack' him now might have left them open to litigation from the player / his agent, and therefore decided it was best to come to a settlement with him instead.

He has shown flashes of quality in his play from what I saw last season, and I thought he linked well with Bertrand down the left. Personally, I would be interested to see what he could bring having done a full pre-season with us. He came in during January, having been out of favour at his old club, and has never had a continued run in the first team. I'm struggling to think of any player who has ever made the kind of impact some people on here expect in such circumstances.

Oh that's really f*cking annoying! We've been the better team since Toure went off.

I dunno what Pelle was thinking there. Short of the most spectacular volley ever seen in the PL he was never going to trouble hart from there. He had time and space to do something else with it.

Once again, the quality of our crossing has been very poor today.

Annoyingly, the lino is getting all the offside calls right today, unlike last season

Yes he is