Portsmouth vs Cardiff

This will probably be written as the transfer window SLAMS shut! I should've done this over the tedious and often dull coverage Sky Sports has given myself this sunny day! I probably didn't need to sit for 6 hours in front of the TV, but I did...
During that time Portsmouth lost to Real Betis 5-1 in Sevilla and signed no one (I'm content with that as we have a good team atm, need loan bolstering).

Once again we face Cardiff early on in the season at home, this time Cardiff aren't as strong as they were in 2010 and we are not as weak as then. This time it could be said the teams were both evenly matched, with Cardiff signing Andrew Taylor (big bloke!), Robert Earnshaw, Kenny Miller etc. they look formidable. After a tedious 0-0 draw with Bristol City we had our first chance look at Erik Huseklepp and it seemed very promising with him turning and flat footing many City defenders! So would he be able to replicate this once more against Cardiff and terrorize the defense of the Welsh team?
We went into the game with the knowledge of another signing which is Marko Futacs a Hungarian international from Werder Bremen on a free, a striker by position and at 6ft 5 inches will give Kitson a challenge in the first team (which is nice).

The warm up was interesting, usually it isn't, but seeing Futacs and Huseklepp warm up gave us a taste of what they can do, especially the strange new training routine which I've not seen before (forgive me I've not seen this) of passing it to a coach, they lay it off on the edge of the box and the player strikes it first time at the goal with Henderson between the sticks. Interesting because the first player was Huseklepp who hit a rocket of a shot into the top corner, made the Fratton end somewhat excited!

Onto the game! The line-up looked like Cotterill had opted for a 4-4-2 formation with Kitson and Huseklepp partnered up front, a promising start! We looked to finally break away from the stifling 4-5-1 formation. The first half was alright, it wasn't a pulse racing first half as usual, Cardiff were far more threatening in the first half, in terms of clear shots on target, our best chance was a strange cross/shot from Joel Ward which dipped and pinged off the crossbar, very unlucky! Robert Earnshaw was a right handful for the defense with Ben Haim and Pearce kept very busy. First gripe is our stifled attacks, I mean we just don't go for it, if a attack by Cardiff is stopped we just wait around holding possession in the hope that a long ball can be used with Kitson flicking it on to head into the box, but this never works! It never does, mainly because Kitson track backs too much at the moment, often he is found too wide nearly taking off players kneecaps! An example of this is when Kitson stole the ball off a defender who was being too lethargic around the halfway line and then passed it to Lawrence. Now I thought Kitson would run into a attacking position and run towards goal, but he decided to track back!? WHY?! He should've been running in on goal, this led to a large groan from the entire stadium and almost bemusement from the Cardiff fans.
Huseklepp was kept quiet, he was man managed well by the Cardiff defense and given no room to move around in, which i think dosen't suit him at all. Never the less he had a few flashes of good skill in possession. Again we attacked down the left hand side which was quickly dealt with after the 10th time of doing it, Huseklepp and Lawrence were stood idle on the right side, almost anonymous! Half time came and agreeing with the people behind me "Could've had more fun at a funeral".

Second half was much better (strange eh?) we looked more threatening, changed to a 4-3-2-1 formation with Huseklepp and Varney in winger positions and Kitson as lone striker. Again we stifled in our attacks, focusing more on going down the left hand side and feeding crosses into the box, rather than shots or short passing into the box (or a mix of the three be nice). After some dreadful play by Kitson who was working hard but kept doing too much I felt, it's nice but he often led to loss of the ball and stifled attacks. Benjani got changed and we thought it be the end of Kitson, nope, Huseklepp went off which was agreeable as he had a forgettable home debut, with little touches and almost forgotten on the right hand side it was time for him to go. Halford was unfortunate not to score after his free kick shot rocketed off the post, was such a fierce strike! Cardiff then got the goal they were often threatening with a superbly worked goal, with the ball flashing from the right to the left and fell to Andrew Taylor in space to pick his spot and hammer home to the delight of the horrid Cardiff fans who tried to trample the stewards and get onto the pitch. Why not celebrate where you stand?!
We responded well by trying to go for goal once more, constantly attacking, threatening, so much so we had two very close goal line chances, first one I swear was over the line! But don't think the ball was all the way over to be honest, just a quick gut instinct! The second fell to Benjani with the goal at his mercy and he slammed it into the defender on the line, shame, but he didn't have much time to place his shot, only to hit it first time.
Then on the 80th minute came our reward, after a cross deflected back to Ben Haim he tracked back and picked a cross heading to the far post which Kanu got down low and headed past David Marshall to make the score level! Good cross and great finish from the 55, 43, 35 year old striker!
The rest of the game was both teams fighting back and forth towards each others halves trying to get the winning goal, both counting out each of their attacks.

Overall it was a interesting game, with some positives and negatives. The positives is that as a team we seem more a unit, especially our defensive line up which seemed solid and able to cope well with most Cardiff attacks.
But again our going forward mentality is stifled, and gives the chance for the opposing team to regroup and block out our attacks. Moving down the left flank and getting cut out as we try switch the play, or often hoofing the ball over the midfield and into the often caught out Kitson leading to lost possession.

I don't know what we need to do to improve this, perhaps a loan signing of an creative/attacking midfielder to give us that edge in the middle of the pitch. We shall see how Futacs gets on in his first game and if Huseklepp gets a good innings against West Ham also.

Enough of my ramblings! Hope you enjoyed this report!

Oh Pompey did sign someone today, it was Jed Wallace from Lewes, yup, massive signing ;)

Typed through tears of a lost opportunity!

So he finally moved clubs, the goal scorer from up north....Adam Le Fondre, he made a £350,000 move to.....

 

Reading....(so glad we've already played them)

So Portsmouth missed out on a proven English striker who gets goals for a living, he has 110 league goals in 256 games, so an average of 2.3 a game! And only 24! But no we spend £1.5m on Erik Huseklepp who has scored about 40 goals over 175 appearances which is a mediocre 0.23 per game. Tepid in comparison. Some would argue it's because Erik played at a 'higher level' but if he's a striker he should be bagging goals, look at someone like Darren Bent, he has a great scoring record and has played at a high level for a long time (140 goals all in the Premier League over 10 years).

But I hope I'm proved wrong after today, he was quiet Huseklepp but he did have 2/3 defenders on him at one time, but that's for another blog! I will say I hope our own new number 9 is much better than our no.18 the ginger ninja Mr Dave Kitson, my word.....

BUT £350k, missed a bargain out there!!! Could've bought 4.2 Le Fondre's for the price of Erik Huseklepp....puts into perspective, especially if Le Fondre scores more goals than Erik!

No match report for Reading

I feel bad for not getting around to doing the Reading game report, seems a shame to not comment on such a interesting game....But I do find it funny that after complaining about Cotterill using the left hand side too much that even my dad has started to notice this rather bemusing tactic!

Errr should say something else...errr....sign this bloke please Cotterill, should cost 500k-750k, pretty please?

 

(Adam Le Fondre if you don't know my admiration for him)

Stevie sign him up! Stevie Stevie sign him up!

Portsmouth vs Brighton

After the debacle of Barnet a few days earlier I was somewhat apprehensive about this particular game, with Brighton another spirited team who does not give up! Their performance last week against Doncaster at the new shiny Amex Stadium proved this, with two late goals by Buckley.
I was warned that Brighton and Gus Poyet were not the most sporting of teams, with soft players and apparent time wasting.

Pre-match was memorable for good reason, FREE FLAGS!!! I mean the announcement of a new signing, which made me perk up from whatever was going on Facebook at the time. After bemoaning about lack of signings with loads of free agents a familiar face walks onto the field which is Benjani! Apparently the deal was done in less than 48 hours, hence the lack of speculation, this led to a massive cheer from the crowd and the chants of 'Benjani-woaaaah!'. Interesting signing from Cotterill, long as he's near match fitness and is willing to slot in straight away it would bolster our weakest area of our squad.

Now onto the game itself, as the players came out they were welcomed by the sight of around 14,000 flags being waved from all the home ends of the stadium, looked like this;

 

Great reception, followed by a rousing chime!

Now the first half was a massive improvement from Tuesday night, the team looked to have more consistent passing and attacking promise. The line up suggested another odd 4-5-1 with Kanu up front and Varney on the wing. This worked alright, with Kanu and Varney creating good chances but the lack of a finish let us down, I couldn't work out whether we were doing an 'Arsenal' by trying to create the 'perfect goal', we at least tested the goalkeeper. What stifled our game the most and frustrated both fans and players was the referee, I mean every 5 minutes there was a foul that felt somewhat soft or unexplainable, it quickly kept halting the game, especially when both teams were battling in midfield. It didn't suit either team, then the goal that came in the injury time of the first half was dubious. Noone struck his ball which was well saved by Ashdown but not collected allowing Mackail-Smith moving from an offside position to somehow tuck the ball away sending the snot green fans mental. The Pompey players reacted well by going down the other end and sending a good attacking move which was comfortably saved by the goalkeeper.

Second half was not as good as the first in my mind, the creativity seemed to have stopped, at times the players were being too rigid in their positions, easily picked up, with passes constantly being intercepted. At one point the players with the ball looked confused as what to do because there was no opportunity opening up except for passing back to the keeper! It shows a real worrying lack of attacking flair in our midfield, this may of been from constant investment of defensive minded players as opposed to attacking. Again the referee started making a nuicance of himself again, booking players for some minor fouls and sparing the Brighton players for all of it, an instance of this was when Mokoena raised his foot into a challenge and won the ball fairly but was booked for this and a free kick to Brighton. Now same incident again but to a Portsmouth player, he missed and clipped Ben Haim's ankle, no foul, no card, just rolled out for a throw, just felt this referee had a grudge for us. Speaking of Brighton players, my friend was right about their sportmanship, or the lack of it, they took way to long taking any set piece, worst of them being goal kicks, which seemed to take around 5 minutes just to place the ball!
Towards the end I was getting more annoyed at our lack of ambition and drive to get an equaliser, with time running out Cotterill has his plan of throwing on Kitson on (presumably for Kanu, tried), no, for Joel Ward...errr yeah. So Kitson comes on and immediatley starts clattering into people, getting angry, then is yellow carded for his troubles, not a great start...Cotterill throws on Ryan Williams with 10 minutes to go and what do you know, again the young lad gets into a great position, turns and is through on goal, but bloody passes it!? SHOOT for god sake! Least then you could earn a corner for your troubles. I did however admire the drive to get the equaliser at the end, the constant sending in of balls for which one pinged off the outstretched hand of a Brighton player, should be a straight red for deliberate handball, as it was way above the heads of people, no reason for it to be there! No it was a yellow, pathetic.
Liam Lawrence stepped up to seal the draw and send the Fratton faithful home with something to maybe smile about (as well as Benjani), but unfortunately the post intervened, I'm not going to have a go at Lawrence as he hit it well and just a tad unlucky it didn't hit the inside of the post, we could all see how much it meant to him getting that goal. Just a shame the goalkeeper rubbed it in after the final whistle went. Don't think he'll get a great reception on his next visit!

Tactics again come up this match report, as they always seem very stifled and stuffy, a 4-5-1 at home isn't a great tactic, however much you bleat on about having a 'lack of players', some of those players looked lost and bereft of ideas by the end of the game. I however did like Kitson dropping to the bench and being replaced by Kanu, it helped create more chances, rather than using a long ball system which leads to nothing. Hopefully with Benjani on board now we could swap to a 4-4-2 formation, using two midfielders and two wingers (maybe give Ryan Williams a start?), plus we have Jason Pearce making his first start at Reading after his 3 match ban that overlapped from last season being fulfilled.
I read today that Cotterill is hoping to sign some more players before the Reading game, but the deadline has passed so I doubt it, unless he's going to sign some more golden oldies and show them off before the game kicks off? What we lack is a presence up front, we have a great defense, with some solid defenders, I mean Mokoena and Ben Haim were solid at the back, often holding up or clearing any danger and stifling Brighton's attacks and keeping them quiet.
Perhaps a 1-2 more forwards, get one permanent and one loan signing which would give us options and flexibility, and we also need a linchpin attacking midfielder, like a new Kranjcar or Pedro Mendes, able to score goals himself and create many more for his team-mates.

With 15 days until the transfer window comes to a close I sure hope the new owners are taking notes when they watch our games, as they need to help Cotterill get the players in, as I don't think the name Steve Cotterill followed by Portsmouth FC aren't the most appealing of club moves in football at the moment. But let's keep the faith and carry on!
Now it's Tuesday (shows how long it's taken to write this post!) and we play Reading, last season it was a scrappy 1-1 affair with Jimmy Kebe equalising in the 89th minute. Now with Shane Long off to West Brom and their win over favourites Leicester it will either be a good win for us, or a goal fest for both teams, 7-4 again guys?! Benjani hat-trick?! I can dream on....

No more signings before Brighton game

(Kind of regurgitated this from other sources)

But today the news broke that Portsmouth would not be signing any players prior to the Brighton match on Saturday. After Tuesday's performance this gives me great doubt about Cotterill's power to bring players to Portsmouth, he's done a great job so far, but is that all he can do?
I hope I am proved wrong soon, because having a squad of 15 is rather embarrassing and trying to 'justify' it to fellow football fans is wearing rather thinly.

Why can't he sign up some free signings, just to bolster the squad? Where are the loan signings?! With other teams such as fellow rivals Scumhampton buying a new defender and possibly Nicky Maynard in the future it makes me worried about the rest of the season.

Oh well.

Portsmouth vs Barnet

Carling Cup First Round and the first home competitive game at Fratton Park this season, many fans were expecting a walkover against the nearly relegated Barnet, but they were in for a shock.

On the strange backdrop of the old Joanna's nightclub burning down on the seafront I made my way down to Fratton Park with Mr Sole, I discussed how Barnet are a very spirited team with a lot of pace in their attack, which may not be believed since they nearly lost their football status last season.
Team news was that Hreiðarsson and Ben Haim was missing due to international duty, Christian Dailly came into the squad as well as Henderson in goal. The lineup suggested a possible 4-4-2 lineup which sounded good with Varney and Kitson up front, but the reality as they lined up for kick-off suggested othwerwise, a dull 4-5-1 with Kitson up front, alone.

The match was such a drab performance by Portsmouth, the players seemed to not communicate with each other, no awareness of where each player was, passing aimlessly, hoping that player would get on the end of it. Playing constantly down the left hand side!? What kind of half arsed tactic is that, when clearly our best crossing ability and playmakers play on the right hand side (Lawrence and Halford), often Lawrence was screaming for the ball to be played to him as he wasn't getting any delivery, when it was it got over-hit or intercepted, that coupled with the much maligned tactic of mine. Now hoofing a long ball to Kitson to then somehow flick on to another player just does not work, especially when the player concerned has a touch of a donkey on a roller coaster, they tried this with Varney but soon was stopped. Our attack was consigned to scrappy breaks into the box, no slick movement or passing, nor any tries from long range. The general attitude of the players decreased with more and more baffling decisions by the referee and the linesman on the North Stand side. Mokoena was very lucky to not have been sent off for shoving the Barnet striker to the ground early on in the game.

Another gripe I had last night was when a set piece such as a corner came threatening, it seemed the tactic was to put nine players into the box and leave one player to be able to break away if it came to that, when we did get the ball and tried to break there was no urgency, just a lot of holding and switching play, it was so dull to watch and more often then not led to Barnet taking the ball of us and threatening again.

What could've been done to improve this game? Perhaps playing people in positions they are comfortable in? With Ward in left back, Mokoena in right back and Dailly in the centre of midfield they all seemed a little out of place, now I'm sure they could've swapped Halford into right back which he is comfortable with. Perhaps even playing a good attacking formation like 4-4-2 with Varney and Kitson up front, this would've provided some room for movement in midfield, rather than being stifled by too many bodies.

Some positives out of last night as I feel I've gone on a bit of a rant! Henderson kept things to 1-0 with some fantastic shot stopping, he showed great composure with one on one situations. But he didn't show that when going up to collect balls, with most leading to him fumbling the ball, again a lack of communication between keeper and players. Ryan Williams looked spirited and gave more effort in the 20 minutes he was on for than some that were on for the full 90! Kanu showed great awareness and composure and tried his best to get some attacking moves going, only it to fail before him, must of been ever so frustrating!

It's been said before but we need more players, urgently, mainly midfielders and strikers to be honest. We can't rely on Kitson to provide the goals, it's the same situation as last season with Dave Nugent, he wasn't going to provide 20 goals a season on his own (as he's a poacher...). If we had £2.5m available to buy Martin Paterson from Burnley we could easily buy a few from lower leagues, perhaps a young striker like Danny Ings? My favourite League Two striker Adam Le Fondre? (scored 20 goals consitently for 4 seasons and is only 24!).
My previous blog about the free market brought some interesting players to the forefront, Jason Koumas and James McFadden, they would provide a great attacking flair to our midfield which is lacks, we have a lot of defensive minded players in midfield that aren't the best at starting an attack. Also I believe David Carney would be a great free transfer and would provide that much needed support in left back to let someone like Hreiðarsson have a break or sit on the bench, as he isn't getting younger and can't keep up with some of the quicker wingers in the league.


Steve Cotterill really needs to take lessons from this game, whether he wanted to throw it away or not he needs to remember that the fans understood why last season we had so few players but now it's a different story and if we still only have around 15-16 players by September 1st I don't think many of us will be happy. Even with loan signings we need those permanent players to be the backbone of the squad. I saw a brief insight tonight by The News journalist Neil Allen about the transfer policy of Portsmouth FC sheds light on why we may not be able to get players in;

1. CSI Group provide transfer/wage budget.
2. Steve Cotterill provides a list of players he's interested/targetted
3. David Lampitt negotiates with agents, players and clubs

Now in jest I keep imagining Cotterill's contact book contains only Stoke, Cheltenham and Burnley, but the shocking truth is to most Portsmouth fans is that we have not signed anyone for around 35 days. Could be that Steve Cotterill is setting his sights too high, rather than looking at what is in other leagues, again mentioning Le Fondre who I think personally would fit in well, will score goals and will probably cost between £500-750k and won't be too demanding with wages I feel!


Full credit to Barnet as well for such a great performance!
Now looking forward to the weekend....I'm not, if we don't improve we will be taught a lesson by Gus Poyet and his Brighton side on Saturday.


One thing to look forward to though is buying the new home kit tomorrow!

Free players we could have!

So tonight was dreadful, so to cheer myself up I decided to pilfer through the PFA free agent list, which shows the players who aren't with any clubs at the moment. If Cotterill is spending £2.5m on one striker then he clearly needs to scout this list!

Here are a few good ones on the list;

• David Carney (left back)
• Jason Koumas (attacking midfielder)
• James McFadden (winger/forward)
• Robert Pires (winger, attacking midfielder)

Now if they were demanding a reasonable wage I think these guys would be a great addition to the squad and wouldn't cost anything! Jason Koumas or McFadden would be the best of the pick!

BBC's Price of Football

Today the BBC Sport section posted a fantastic article which details the price of football across the 4 professional leagues in England. It used 4 criteria to assess the cheapest club from the most expensive, these were;
- Cheapest ticket
- Cost of food and drink (a pie and cup of tea)
- Matchday programme

It does provide a interesting insight into the cost of football to the fans themselves, rather than focusing on how much clubs are in debt. Now Portsmouth are 2nd in the expensive section, not a great place to be after last years events. £25 is the cheapest adult ticket, £3 programme, £2 cup of tea and £3.50 pie, costing the average on the day fan £33.50. Now if you are a regular at football grounds there are usually deals with pies, I can't remember them off the top of my head, but they do save around £1 or 50p.

Coincidentally Portsmouth released their new family ticket, amusingly called FourTress Fratton, it contains 2 adult tickets and 2 child tickets (under 17) for only £44! This saves a massive £32! Nearly as much for a single on the day punter in the BBC report! But! The deal is only for selected matches, 4 in fact, against Blackpool, Hull, Doncaster and Coventry, nevertheless if it brings more people to the club who previously were unable to then I'm all for it!

Will be purchasing my Carling Cup tickets against Barnet tomorrow as well, looking forward to it. First competitive match at Fratton Park. Only one week away!

Dave.

New Season, New Kits

So its now 6 days until the start of the Championship season, so I thought I'd present the 6 kits from the 24 teams that I find particularly interesting.

First up is Coventry;

 

What I like about the Coventry kit is the 'vintage' feel of the kit, with the old style logo and the simple layout. Simple collar, simple colours, easy on the eye. I'd be happy as a Coventry fan with this home kit.

Second up is Brighton & Hove Albion, with their return to the Championship since the 2002/3 season, with their fantastic new Falmer Stadium they are certainly going to make an impression this season!

 

With thicker stripes and a a slicker finish to last years home kit this will look fantastic in their new stadium. I wish Brighton all the best as a fellow southerner.

Next up is Reading;

Much slicker than last seasons, looks clean and with the small collar it compliments the rest of the kit nicely (sound like Gok Wan now...).
So now for a bad one, as I they can't all be amazing, so here is Blackpool;

So the difference between last years and this years is the collar, yeah that is about it, so that's £40 please? Oh it's made by Fila, have I convinced you yet?

So from one extreme to another is Peterborough, another recently promoted team, they've changed from a solid blue kit to a smarter looking kit in my opinion, a fresh look to a new season

Last but not least is Portsmouth, my own team (had to do it);

I think this is an improvement on last years kit, as that was rushed due to financial constraints of the club, where as now we are in a stable condition to be able to do it properly. All blue with gold Kappa girls is a good improvement to the white ones last year, just a shame they are so prominent on the arms when compared to Fulham's. I'll still be buying the kit this season when it comes out on the 11th August.

Hope you've enjoyed this little blog on the kits of Championship, might do some more leading up to next weekend and the first home game against Barnet in the Carling Cup.

Dave.