Lighthouse

Crouch's last minute winner against the Skates in the cup. Beattie against West Ham in 2002 Tessem's winner against Sunderland Waigo against Norwich in the JPT (I went bananas when that went in) Barnard's winner at Yeovil in the sunshine Barnard's equaliser at Brighton Fonte's winner at Brighton DMGs winner at Preston Rasiak at Pride Park in the playoffs

Sharp should play because he can score in games when apparently nobody else could. Describing SDR as "running around a lot" does him a disservice IMO. He has pace and is very direct, but we don't really play to his strenghts. His problem is made a lot worse by the fact that a) he only seems to get 30 mins to prove himself. Half what Guly gets and a third of the time most other players get. b) He is often chucked into games where we aren't playing well and need someone to turn the game around. In the games where we play well and are already 2-0, he often gets left on the bench.

Arsenal at home was the one where Prutton got sent off and received a 10 match ban for a light shove on the ref. Ludicrous penalty, but that's another topic. Prutton sent off Arsenal scored Van Persie sent off Crouch scores from a corner. Paul Smith pulls off a sh*t load of awesome saves, easily as good as Kelvin was at Leeds. 1-1 draw.

Arsenal as well in the relegation season, that was sickening. We had a very similar result to yesterday against Newcastle the year before. Griffit scored in the last minute to put us 3-2 up, then Ambrose equalised from a corner with the last kick of the game. We had nothing to play for in that one though. And don't forget our trip to Millwall last season. A lot of people probably left early having witnessed a 0-0 draw.

We're fans, if one of our players scores a belter we will naturally and quite rightly praise him. That doesn't absolve the opposition from all faults, it's just that we naturally pay far more attention to our own players. Norris' goal was a bit different, it was a dodgy clearance and nobody picked him up in the 2 seconds we had to react. It's poor but forgiveable. The first though, how a player gets to the edge of our own penalty box unmarked is criminal. It wasn't even a fast counter attack, it's just the bloke who should have been covering the right was jogging aimlessly back towards the penalty box.

What? Richardson was trying to mark 2 men on his own. His best bet was to try and stand the pair of them up until help arrived. If he goes in with a tackle, Macguire just collects the loose ball goes straight past him. Fonte is already marking the black fellar on the right hand side of the box (Rekik is it). You think instead a centre half should be closing down a bloke who is well outside the area? Watch Guly again very carefully. He's not even running back to pick anyone up, he's just casually jogging back to mark absolutely nobody in the penalty area. That's dreadful.

Today wasn't that bad FFS!

Next game coming up quickly, an Easter Monday trip to Palace. The Eagles have nothing to play for and appeared to put up absolutely no resistance to Brum today, going 3-0 very quickly and eventually losing 3-1. Their form overall has been poor too. 3 defeats in their last 4 and 1 win in their last 8. Saints last away game: 3-0 defeat (Blackpool) Palace last home game: 3-0 defeat (Forest) As for the teams, Morgan will definitely miss the game. I'd personally go with: Davis Frazer - Fonte - Jos - Fox Puncheon - Hammond - Cork - Lallana Lambert - Sharp Subs: Martin, Harding, De Ridder, Barnard, Flakey

Me and my big mouth.

Only just seen the score at the Ricoh. How sick will the Skates feel if Coventry win that after snatching a point today. Boro, Posh and Palace really aren't all that based on todays showing. The latter 2 with nothing at all to play for. As a neutral, I'd definitely still put my money on Saints, but as a Saints fan... oooh er.

Richardson was marking 2 men on his own. He did a good job of stopping them from getting in behind the defence, but this unfortunately left Macguire in an awful lot of space with time to shoot. Our right sided midfielder should have been tracking back and putting pressure on Macguire but he didn't. The blame for our first goal falls largely on the shoulders of our right sided midfielder... which was Guly. I'm not silly enough to go blaming results on one player, but he was at fault for the first goal, no question.

That is just a ridiculous assumption. It looked bad, but let's wait and see first.

De Ridder looked pretty useful on the rare occasions the ball game near him. The trouble was we were largely just hoofing it forwards and not getting it down and playing it in behind. Guly looked poor though. One good run and shot at the end of the first half but largely ineffective otherwise. Left Macguire completely unmarked for their first goal.

3-0 now. Palace with absolutely nothing to play for, hopefully they will be as poor on Monday as Barnsley were last night.

Pompey got battered 5-1 at home before this game. Things could get a whole lot better.

Just looking at our remaining fixtures, Boro are 2-0 down at home after 19 minutes against Cardiff. If we take our A game to the Riverside, we can take them to school.

Bit odd coming from a Pompey fan. (Check his post history if you don't believe me)

I thought Guly looked pretty poor and did very little today. 1 run and shot at the end of the first half was about the best of his contribution. I thought De Ridder looked better, but didn't really get much of the ball. If we play the ball in behind and on the ground, he can rip them apart. Today there was a lot of aimless hoofing.

Okay, now I've calmed down a bit that was probably a fair result based on that game. Pompey played absolutely out of their skins and scored 2 crackers, even if both were terribly marked. They don't, can't and won't play anywhere near that tempo every week. Teams always raise their game for a local derby, this was never going to be one sided. We are still top. Aside from the hows and the whys, we are top and have a 5 game season with a 4 point head start. We can still do this. We were crap at Blackpool and local derbies are always a lottery. Lambert didn't look fit, but we have Sharp in amonst the goals and I think those 2 and Barnard have enough in them to win games.

I feel sick.

I'm going to be sick

Gordon Bennett our deliveries have been crap today.

I'm not one of the Guly bashers normally, but Christ alive he was nowhere near McGuire when he scored. A great strike yes, but he had all the time and space in the world. Terrible tracking back. I'll stay possitive though, we looked the better side and I'd be surprised if the Skates can keep up that tempo for 90 minutes. I'm not saying it will be easier, but hopefully we can calm down, start passing and get them on the ropes. I'd bring on De Ridder for Guly, who has done very little in the first half. Maybe not straight away but after 60 minutes or so.

Erm. Yeah, but it's not though is it. Being a (fairly) young'n I'm not quite so hot on which trophy was called what 30 years ago, but regardless of the name it's still the second tier of English foobtall. Winning the league this year wont put us up there with the 80s Liverpool teams etc.

More than likely Livepool, only to get fired after 4 months in charge because they're midtable. After that he will probably end up propping up a team like Villa or Fulham for a couple of years.