CHAPEL END CHARLIE

Forget the players, I reckon the 300 fans who made that mammoth away trip on a Tuesday night deserve a bloody medal. Well done to you all.

You keep hearing that the appalling reputation this clubs fans earned back in the day is all long gone now and they've been rehabilitated. Well recent personal experience of their vile fanbase, and even a brief glance at this equally horrible forum, seem to confirm that little or nothing has really changed after all. A nasty little club that remains a unsightly mole on the face of the beautiful game.

The first thing to say is that we're a long way from automatic promotion as yet and assuming a top two finish at this time smacks of a WHU level of arrogance. Having said that, a degree of arrogance is unavoidable when you are top of the league in March. So should we get there I'd say only around half our squad look really good enough - or potentially good enough - to play regularly at the top of the English game. Quality players: Lambert - what a player! he has well and truly earned his chance at this late stage of his career Lallana - easily our best player technically and the closest thing we have to a certain PL success Schneiderlin - there are very many worse players than Morgan already featuring regularly in PL midfield's Cork - a young player who has a great chance of proving himself good enough methinks Davis - like Lambert deserves his place, but IMO we should still sign another proven keeper as real competition however. Those who may, or may not, be able to make the step up: Fox - good FL player, but defensively strong enough for the PL ? Sharp - not the best of starts to his SFC career perhaps, but early days & thus almost certain to stay Chaplow - decent squad player when fully fit, likely stay I think Martin - coming along nicely and a young player we will retain I would have thought Richardson - good going forward, but like Fox is he 'all that' when defending ? Hooiveld - proven CB at this level, but only time will tell if he is he capable of more. Almost certain to stay Fonte - see above SDR - a fringe player so far, but worth keeping for at least another season in my view Lee - good prospect & sure to stay. He needs to fulfill on that promise however Butterfield - decent cover for Fox who hasn't done much wrong. Just given a contract extension Guly - not really my idea of a PL player, but NA likes him it would seem Those who just don't look up to it in this fans view I'm sorry to say: Puncheon - could go into the group above I suppose, but no favorite of mine and on his way this summer I guess Jaidi - too old/slow for the PL Barnard - another borderline case, a latter day Brett Omerod perhaps ? Hammond - looks like a FL standard player to me, but will probably stay anyway Harding - I have always liked him, but the PL may be a 'bridge to far' for Dan I feel Connolly - see Jaidi Bialkowski - the PL is no place for a 'bag of nerves' like Bart - time for him to move on Seaborne - lower league player IMO Holmes - out on loan, a decent fringe player who will be on his way this summer I reckon Dickson - another lower league player, already out on loan Forecast - Get rid ASAP Forte - doing OK out on loan, but on his way soon methinks It seems unfair to comment on our youngsters as it's too early to tell with most of them. Of course some players you want to go will stay, and others you'd rather retain may go anyway - such as AOC last summer. So with only 5 likely to be good enough, and a further 10 (or so) 'maybe's' it seems to this fan that we'd need to shift out about ten, and bring in at least six quality players to replace them this summer if we go up. The 'goals conceded' stats show that NA will surely need to take a long hard look at our defence in particular I reckon.

Luckily enough by the sound of it, I was way from the radio and internet all afternoon playing a game of what they call in these here parts 'World Cup Willie' with the kids - I very nearly crashed the Mondeo when I heard the result on the drive home ! Results like this are the stuff promotions are made of .... but we're not there yet mind.

Spent £33 getting 3 kids tickets for Donny game last week and today tried to get a extra adult ticket for Pompey using than link - "computer says no" say the bleedin ticket office !!!!!! I wonder if anyone at the club knows (or cares) just how frustrating they have needlessly made what should be the simple matter of buying a ticket for a football match.

Good idea.

Steady ! Like many others on here I think he's done pretty well so far, but strikers are all about goals ultimately and he'll have to start knocking them in regularly in this division before we start dreaming of what he may do in the next. His attitude and technique seem spot on as far as I can tell, but in the physical English game he may need to learn how to barge his way into prime shooting positions before we see the best of him. With acknowledged experts in that 'black art' such as Sir Ricky Lambert and Billy Sharp around him, he may well be in just the right place to learn.

Show me where I've ever said Guly is lazy ? What you describe as the 'Guly is crap' argument is based on the observation that he very often gives the impression of not being all that good at this football malarkey. If the only opinion permissible on this forum now is some variation on the 'Mother always knows best' point of view then, I'm not sure this place is worth my £5 a year frankly. Of course the manager knows the game, and his players, better than we mere fans can ever do, but does than mean he's always right or that fans should not feel free to express their own views on players ? I don't happen to think this players recent contributions are even nearly good enough to earn him a place in the starting line-up, perhaps I'm harder to please than some. Now my subjective opinion is no more a 'fact' than your completely opposite view is, but that is how I see it and until this player recaptures his early season form I shall continue to express it. That is all.

You're saying then that our manager is the first infallible human being to walk this Earth for 2000 years, and that as a consequence all forms of debate are therefore redundant ? Are you NickG in disguise by any chance

What you say may well have some truth in it, or to be more succinct, it was arguably true earlier on in the season. People keep harping on about his 11 goals and numerous 'assists' - but just how many of those have we seen since Christmas say ? Footballing form meaningfully exists only in the 'now' I'm afraid, and what you may have done back in September or October does not necessarily have that much baring on your value to the team in March or April. I say today Jack Cork, Richard Chaplow (even Jason bloody Puncheon) might all have made a significantly more effective contribution to our collective effort than what Guly do Prado is currently offering us - and as we at very much at the 'business end' of the season now Guly may well be a luxury we just can't afford any longer. That's not to say those who boo him at games are right to do so because, although I share their sense of frustration, I don't really believe it does any good at all.

We rely too much on Ricky Lambert and after playing virtually every game this season it should come as no surprise to see him struggle every now and then - as was the case today. We have Billy Sharp now, and IMO we should use him to lift some of the burden off Sir Ricky's shoulders.

Good result, poorish performance I thought. I'm not at all sure the players adapted properly to whatever strange formation the manager imposed upon them and Barnsley were probably the better side until they made the elementary mistake of leaving Adam Lallana totally unmarked in the box - a costly mistake because from that moment on we always looked like the likely winners. 3 Good Reports of Adam Lallana's inability to hit the target seem greatly exaggerated. Danny Fox quickly recovered from injury and he had a decent game today I thought 2nd goal all down to 'Chung' Lee's industry and quality 3 Bad: We played with little real width today - & suffered because of it. Ricky Lambert looking very tired and off form - rightly subbed We will surely have to improve our performance again when we play the likes of Reading

I can only speak the truth as I see it, and the honest truth is my heart sank when I saw he was back in the starting line-up today, and 90 minutes later I hadn't see much to make me think I had been overly pessimistic. Now I'm well aware that there are plenty on here who really rate him but phrases like "he put a shift in" are code for "he tried hard but didn't achieve very much" aren't they ? You can talk a player up from now until the end of time but it doesn't make them any better than they are I'm afraid. Never mind - we still won.

Regardless of what we might want Reading will almost certainly prove to be way too good for Pompey methinks - could even be a proper 3 or 4 goal thrashing.

I can't say I enjoyed that because we were well and truly "battered" by horrible Leeds - but what a ferking fantastic result. Kelvin Davis obviously outstanding and Lambert won it, but lets give a special mention to Chaplow and Spiderman in midfield too - heroic.

Well it wasn't me

I've never seen him better - big performance from a big man.

Being (very) working class I can't afford such middle class nonsense - we blue collar types just to get on with it.

Kelvin Davis is certainly a good keeper - but I reckon Rob Green may be even better. Interesting factoid (if true) on the Radio yesterday - Saints have not lost a game this season when Jos Hooiveld is playing.

Help me out here - the lyrics for our version of the 'EIEIEIO' song please. ... and well done my Saints !

Get in there quick !!!

In theory the live table shows we're just one Coventry goal away from us finishing the day top of the league, and them lot at the wrong end of the M27 being bottom - and broke. Which would be nice.

The enormous bonuses on offer to investment bankers to engage in risk taking - surprise surprise - encourage exactly that type of behavior, with predictably disastrous consequences when their bets don't pay off. All of which goes a long way towards explaining how we got into this mess in the first place. But it is good to see the banking industry has learnt its lesson re the inherent dangers of the bonus system .......... As for Lloyds losing £3.5bn in the post - well they really should have paid the extra 25p and used recorded delivery.

I've just seen the Danish series 'Those Who Kill' broadcast Thursday night by ITV3, and as a newfound devotee of the oh so fashionable 'Scandinavian Noir' school of crime fiction I must say that although the pilot episode may well have lacked a certain something in originality, I still found it quite gripping - indeed two hours of subtitled television just flew by leaving me eager for more. The basic premise is that a damaged, but rebellious, young female detective tracts down murderers with the assistance of a (brilliant) criminal profiler, not one long investigation this time but separate cases. Yes I know we've all seen similar US and British crime programmes before, but this series is well plotted and very pacy - if you like this kind of thing you may well find it worth your time giving it a go if I may be so bold as to suggest.