Wes Tender

Surely there is no correct answer. We should play to our strengths and also take account of what the opposition game plan is. Yesterday they employed the tactics of packing the midfield narrow, so it was difficult to play the ball through them. Therefore the occasional hoof over the top would have kept them guessing. But then to do that, we need a striker capable of running on to the ball, or somebody like De Ridder with pace. Perhaps that is where we are lacking; we are too one-dimensional and clever managers are sussing out how to handle us.

Careful. That could be construed as homophobic.

Apart from The News not knowing which is Pearson and which is his assistant, comments from the Skates following their article on the forthcoming Leicester match confirm that the few are as delusioned as ever. So Hugo, you carry on believing that the arrest and probable imprisonment of the main shareholder of the group who own your poxy club will mean that nothing changes. Naive or just plain thick? And yes, Rob in Suffolk. There is such as thing as a billionaire who is not corrupt. And you don't need to look far along the M27 to find an example either.

Quite a good article written by a Skate fan here:- http://www.twohundredpercent.net/?p=16384

The first match attended by Markus Liebherr, when it became clear that our future was secure. His intervention in our darkest hour is the biggest single momentous event in our long history and although he was not with us for long, the transition in our fortunes since he bought the club has been nothing short of incredible.

This is to make it seem suspicious should he meet a sticky end. The presumption should then be murder rather than suicide, is what he is saying.

37,200.

Well, you obviously find different things funny to others. I think that it's hilarious. Every time they're taken over, they have a quiet little gloat that their new owner is a super-duper billionaire who is going to plough a fortune into the sleeping giant that is Pompey. Instead, what they get is a load of chancers, wide boys and Walter Mittys, even owners that apparently don't exist. Only Pompey could find Arabs with no money and when the Ruskies turned up on their doorstep, they were probably anticipating another Abramovich, rather than the Russian equivalent of Dell Boy. Pure Comedy Gold.

Yes, but now we're the dog's b*llocks

Is that a squadron of pigs I see flying in formation across the skies towards the golden sunset? Like you, I'll conclude that his connection with the Skates was driven by none of those more noble attributes and that it is far more likely that he is just another of the "flies attracted to the pile of ****" that is Portsmouth FC, just like the child-maiming gun runner, the penniless Middle East ice cream seller, the fake sheik and the Hong Kong loan shark. When the Russian Mafia are gone, who else will it be? They're almost running out of Pantomime villains.

Bonus. It even makes emphasis of the PORK content too.

So now, just to add to the controversy that surrounds this idiot ref, there are complaints from a Brighton player (Marcos Painter) that Walton swore at him. Painter wonders how Taricco swearing got him sent off, but Walton can use similar language and get away with it as the ref. Painter obviously realises that the ref cannot send himself off, so perhaps he should have explained that to his mate Taricco. Swear at the ref, get some punitive retribution; ref swears at you, nothing is going to happen, apart from rival fans thinking that you're a wally.

I think that this bears out another statistic that recently whenever Saints score first, they've gone on to win the match. Whether that applies to just this season, or whether it goes on longer, I don't know.

Wasn't he with Posh?

Worth a mention, I saw texts stating that the crowd noise could be heard from the West Quay centre. We were loud and proud today. It certainly helps having so many away fans right up against block 42. After Brighton's fans had chanted "top of the league, you're having a laugh", we rammed that down their throat replying "top of the league, we're having a laugh". Not so much of the homophobic chants, or even the anti-Skate stuff, as we were too busy chanting "up the league we go", "can we play you every week?" and even "you'll never play here again". Great atmosphere once we scored and dominated.

Credit Poyet for his tactics the first half, stifling our passing game, closing us down, maximum effort to try and be first to every ball. Then hoping to steal a goal on the break from the likes of CM-S. It worked up until half-time. But it seems that Adkins might have changed our tactics to negate theirs and it was always the case that if we scored, Brighton would have to venture forward in search of the equaliser, allowing us to exploit the gaps that they left. Brilliant cross from Richardson for Lambert's header. Good to see a goal from him from open play, as if I'm correct, it's been a while since he scored from open play at home. But when their player was sent off, instead of becoming difficult to break down the 10 men, as it was against Posh, it became substantially easier. From that time onwards, it was all one-way traffic, massive possession for us, stroking the ball around at will and chances for another 2 or 3 more goals. Dodgey refereeing which might have seen another two more penalties. Top performances from most of the team. Guly, Chaplow (again), Hammond and of course Lambert in particular stood out. Nice to see Barnard back on the pitch. We have so much strength in depth. What is this now? Is it the 19th or the 20th home win in a row? The convincing win against the team that went up as champions last season just illustrates how far we've come since then. Although it is still early days to predict that we will go up as champions, there again, I wonder which team in this division could beat us? At the start of the season, there were several teams we might have been nervous about, but we've beaten them all. And the Skates losing too, it's one of those perfect days.

Appalling refereeing. There were at least two good penalty shouts that could easily have gone to us additionally to those he gave. Plus he wasn't even-handed with the fouls either. Yellow cards for fouls given one way and arguably worse ones going unpunished.

Agreed. On the one hand we have the plod and their vain attempt to stamp out homophobic chants at a football matches and on the other hand they indulge in a massive breach of human rights with this bubble crowd control for the Skate match. Perhaps their time would be better served by tackling more serious crime, rather in indulging in petty issues like these. Next we'll have them rounding up fans for using foul and abusive language. And then they wonder why they have come to lose the respect of the general public. And if they are stupid enough to make an announcement about it during the match, then thy deserve all the abuse they get directed at them.

It's just got to be "catch us if you can"

/\ /\ This. But of course, the same analogy applies to us this season going forward. We're not even halfway through the race yet.

The position that we should have known all along that we'd go up, is as silly at that stage as the position that it was all over so early on. They are the polarised extremes, whereas the sensible position was that it was far too early to jump to any concrete conclusions until the season had developed further. Equally, I'm sure though that certain people on here would have rubbed the noses in it of those who had arrogantly predicted that we would walk it, if that prediction had gone pear-shaped.

Exactly. Some posters credibility on matters like this has received a bit of a dent, so that it why they slate this bumping of the original thread, as it makes them look a bit silly. But as you infer, like you I take their utterances with a pinch of salt anyway, largely on the basis that making predictions so early on in a season is stupid. Whether they like it or not, it is inevitable that they will be re-quoted to illustrate how wrong they can be whever they make future predictions on the basis of snap judgements.

I know

No, he was laughing at people who did not have hindsight, not those with hindsight.

Isn't it? I'm particularly enjoying the conclusions in the last post of that thread before you re-opened it.