Sheaf Saint

I've already said we will need to score two or more goals to win on saturday, because I am fully expecting him to score at least one against us.

Why boo him at all? He did a decent job for us I thought, and his supposed slagging of us after he left has been massively exaggerated. I thought his comments were perfectly fair. The abuse he has received from some quarters about it has been nothing short of disgusting IMO.

He probably would have had Alonso if he didn't lose his concentration and run wide. Stunning drive from the lad though.

I think I love Billy Sharp!

Diouf really is a nasty ***** isn't he!

West Ham have equalised

Cov 1-0 Pompey

Barnard on for De Ridder.

Ooooh. close from Sharp

The script was written... Billy Sharp: Take a bow son

And comfortably dismissed Barnsley as well.

Burnley 2-0 WHU!

I very much doubt it. Our game is only 3 weeks away and even if he does miraculously recover from a torn hamstring in that time and plays against us, I doubt he will be as effective as he has been during their recent run.

After lastnight's showing, there really can't be a single decent argument in favour of starting Puncheon ahead of De Ridder. Punch was so one-dimensional and gave the ball away so much we may as well have been playing with 10 men. As soon as De Ridder came on and moved to the right, he started to cause their defence all sorts of problems. I know Adkins likes to use him as an impact sub, but given his recent performances from the bench I really feel it's time to give him a start because I reckon he could tear a new one out of the Donny defence.

Indeed. I couldn't see many empty seats from where I was sat and we made a fair bit of noise at times. I would guess at more than 800 as well.

I too am now back in Sheffield, and I just posted this on the main reaction thread... I didn't think it was quite as comortable as some on here seem to be claiming it was. The build-up to our first goal was lovely and deserved a goal, but there was more than a slight suspicion of handball from Jose before he crossed for Jos to stick away the second. Thankfully, the ref was pretty poor tonight so he didn't see it and the goal stood. Lallana reeeeeeally should have scored when he got put clean through in the first half - it looked harder to miss from where he was but we were up the other end of the ground so it was difficult to see just how tight the angle was. It was evened up a little later on when Hull got in behind from the right wing and the striker who had managed to get goalside of our defense blazed over from 6 yards when he looked odds-on to stick it away. I thought we lacked a little bit in midfield at times and gave the ball away far too cheaply. Cork and Morgan never seemed to get any time to play the ball and looked rushed which might explain why we never really got our passing game going. Kelvin made a couple of decent saves in quick succession near the end, although they were saves you would expect him to make to be fair, but apart from the goals we didn't test their keeper at all. Can't really remember much in the way of clear chances. Lambert had a very quiet night by his standards. He won a lot of headers but invariably there was nobody on his wavelength to latch on to them. Lallana has had many better games than this but did well in the build-up to the first goal and caused a few problems down their right. Jos and Jose seemed to cope very well with pretty much everything that was thrown at them, except for one scary moment when Jos miscontrolled in our area and nearly let their striker in with a clear shot, but he recovered well. Fox had a good game on the right but I thought Richardson got caught napping a couple of times and gave their let winger too much space at times. My only real gripe of the night was Puncheon. He was an absolute waste of space. Offered nothing going forward, and although he did track back and help out in defence he was far too static. There was one moment when he came back to win the ball and laid it off to Frazer, and he had acres of space to then run into but he just stood there ballwatching. He was always too far infield or too close to Richardson to ever be effective, and I don't remember him making any kind of meaningful contribution. As soon as De Ridder came on and went to the right wing, immediately he got down the channel and started causing problems to the Hull defence who had, up until that point, had a pathetically easy ride down their left. It wasn't pretty, but it was a solid team performance overall. Never panicked and looked calm and assured. We saw earlier in the season with the game away at Reading how teams can press us hard and snuff out our attack, so it is nice to know that we can go away to a very well organised and in-form team like Hull, who employed the same tactic of trying to shut down our midfield, and still come away with the 3 points. With the other results going our way as well, I'm a very happy fan tonight.

Just got back and these are my thoughts.... I didn't think it was quite as comortable as some on here seem to be claiming it was. The build-up to our first goal was lovely and deserved a goal, but there was more than a slight suspicion of handball from Jose before he crossed for Jos to stick away the second. Thankfully, the ref was pretty poor tonight so he didn't see it and the goal stood. Lallana reeeeeeally should have scored when he got put clean through in the first half - it looked harder to miss from where he was but we were up the other end of the ground so it was difficult to see just how tight the angle was. It was evened up a little later on when Hull got in behind from the right wing and the striker who had managed to get goalside of our defense blazed over from 6 yards when he looked odds-on to stick it away. I thought we lacked a little bit in midfield at times and gave the ball away far too cheaply. Cork and Morgan never seemed to get any time to play the ball and looked rushed which might explain why we never really got our passing game going. Kelvin made a couple of decent saves in quick succession near the end, although they were saves you would expect him to make to be fair, but apart from the goals we didn't test their keeper at all. Can't really remember much in the way of clear chances. Lambert had a very quiet night by his standards. He won a lot of headers but invariably there was nobody on his wavelength to latch on to them. Lallana has had many better games than this but did well in the build-up to the first goal and caused a few problems down their right. Jos and Jose seemed to cope very well with pretty much everything that was thrown at them, except for one scary moment when Jos miscontrolled in our area and nearly let their striker in with a clear shot, but he recovered well. Fox had a good game on the right but I thought Richardson got caught napping a couple of times and gave their let winger too much space at times. My only real gripe of the night was Puncheon. He was an absolute waste of space. Offered nothing going forward, and although he did track back and help out in defence he was far too static. There was one moment when he came back to win the ball and laid it off to Frazer, and he had acres of space to then run into but he just stood there ballwatching. He was always too far infield or too close to Richardson to ever be effective, and I don't remember him making any kind of meaningful contribution. As soon as De Ridder came on and went to the right wing, immediately he got down the channel and started causing problems to the Hull defence who had, up until that point, had a pathetically easy ride down their left. It wasn't pretty, but it was a solid team performance overall. Never panicked and looked calm and assured. We saw earlier in the season with the game away at Reading how teams can press us hard and snuff out our attack, so it is nice to know that we can go away to a very well organised and in-form team like Hull, who employed the same tactic of trying to shut down our midfield, and still come away with the 3 points. With the other results going our way as well, I'm a very happy fan tonight.

I haven't seen the tweets in question, but they can't be worse than what this guy has to say about Muamba... https://twitter.com/#!/Walken4GOP Someone I know just posted this up on FB. The hate-filled drivel he has spouted is absolutely sickening... Makes me feel ashamed to be a member of the same species as him.

I remember going to an away game at Bristol City many years ago and cringing when a few of our lot started singing 'Southerners, southerners, southerners'.

One of them reckons they were robbed by the FA. So many things wrong in such a short sentence!

That's a shame. If it's big headline acts you want then I agree that it's better to see them in a smaller, indoor venue because they will play for longer and probably come back for an encore etc.., but there are so many positive reasons to enjoy festivals other than just the headline acts. For me it's not really about the headliners - it's more about the little-known, obscure stuff going on in the smaller tents/stages. Over the last few years I have discovered so many good new artists / bands that I would never have known about if I hadn't stumbled across them randomly at a festival. On top of that there is the togetherness of getting all your mates together on the campsite. It's really hard to convince my mates to go and see certain gigs sometimes because people invariably have different tastes, but last year there was a group of about 20 of us all camped together at Beatherder and although we didn't all go to see the same acts, we had a bloody marvellous time.

I'll be making my annual pilgrimage to Beatherder in Lancashire - this will be my fifth year running. A proper grass roots festivale with no attitude, no corporate sponsorship and no bullsh*t. I'm also going to Optimus Alive in Lisbon in July to see The Stone Roses and Radiohead mainly, but that's more going to be a city break with some live music inbetween than a proper festival where you shut yourself away from reality for the weekend. I went to Bestival last year - thought it was OK but a crap atmosphere. The crowd was very stereotypically white, middle-class teenagers in their festival chic, who didn't actually appear to be appreciating a lot of the music and only went there to be one of the cool kids (perhaps it's just because I'm getting a bit old that I thought that though) and given the amount of hassle it is getting there, I don't think I'll be in a hurry to go again. Good lineup this year though. I see there is no Big Chill this year. The organisers claim it is because it clashes with the Olympics, but I reckon it's because their gamble to turn it into a commercial cash-cow last year spectacularly backfired on them. When Festival Republic bought it out they tried to re-brand it into a commercial pop festival and most of the loyal fanbase who used to love it as a showcase for great independent music (like me) turned their backs on it in protest.

Not really. If they were actually any good then the Skates wouldn't be in their current league position because they would have acquired a lot more points prior to the deduction. This, it seems, is the irony of it all... They adopted a quality over quantity policy in their playing squad, but the quality appears to be very questionable.

Just about to turn 37. Born in Winchester and grews up in Bitterne - went to Bitterne Park Comprehensive between 1987 and 1991. I was never interested in football as a kid. Didn't get into it until I was about 13 and first went along cos my mate at school used to get free tickets from his dad who worked at the Dell. My first ever game was a League cup game against Luton in 1988/89 season. It was 0-0 after 90 minutes and we lost 2-1 in extra time. Can't remember who scored our goal. My first really strong memory of watching Saints was later that season when we played Newcastle at home on the back of a shocking run of something like 23 games without a win. I remember it was a tight game with neither team creating much, but we got a penalty in the last minute which a newly-signed Neil Ruddock duly smashed in and we won 1-0 (Newcastle went down that season). To this day I don't think I've ever experienced anything like the celebrations in the Milton End when the final whistle went that day.

Indeed, as we discovered so painfully in 2005. If Brizzle City get any points at home to Cardiff later on, Pompey will be NINE points from safety! WTFILN???