Skeletor

I love Beye..... Agreed

He looks the best suited to playing the lone striker role of any of the strikers we have.

But he may be walking off and thinking "wow my hair glows in the dark, how cool."

And Shearer

We'll play for a 0-0 then consolidate our loss by taking off our attacking threats when we're 2-0 down.

Damn Man City and their winning with exciting, attacking football :-[

The old saying "no matter how bad things are, at least we're not Sunderland" always holds true.

Yet for their 3rd goal, Babel totally skinned Nicky Butt, who is far too overated by most and a key factor in what is going wrong. Reliance on cloggers like him is a recipe for disaster! Why single Butt out? He's not a KEY factor in what is going wrong at all. I'd much rather have him in the team than Emre, Smith or Geremi at the moment. Simple. Because he loses possession far too often, picks up a yellow card and risks the red card too easily. I do not want Smith in the team either btw, but Geremi and Emre at least can pass the ball. Only sideways and backwards though sadly.

The rule for January should be, unless a player is exactly what we need and will make the impact required, then don't buy them. We need players who can play on the deck as we have only two midfielders who can do that at the minute (one of which can only pass side ways and backwards). We obviously need a new right winger...one with pace preferably and we definitely need a new strong, athletic defensive midfielder (who can actually play) as well as more creativity through the center.

I keep saying this - THIS is to be expected in January! You have to pay rediculously over-the-odds for exceptional players nowadays anyway, and with the January market being so slim (teams don't want rid of their best players), we'll potentially get financially bummed if we go at clubs with big bucks. Arshavin's a bit different though, because (stop me if i'm wrong), it's the close season in Russia. EDIT: assuming 'cloggers' means, decent squad-building players on the cheap, a la the summer... It means players like Alan Smith who run around a lot but don't actually do anything positive.

I have to add though that I'll be very upset if he buys more cloggers in the January window.

We're gonna have to keep him until at least the end of the season if we want to have enough credibility to get someone better, plus many international managers will be out of their jobs come the end of Euro 2008. I'd hope Sam plans to buy some flair and creativity in the January window...hopefully pacey players at that too. A big strong, monster of a defensive midfielder wouldn't go amiss either.

It's fairly easy to be exceptional when you're the only team on the pitch.

11th

I want to defend Big Sam, but I just can't think of anything positive to say. Shame. It's amazing that our only real chance (the Viduka offside goal) came from a nice passage of keeping the ball. Probably about the only time we did that all game. Just what exactly happens on the training ground?

How harsh.

All I want right now is the pathetic away performances to be improved.

--------------------Harper----------------- Beye----Rozenhal---Faye---Enrique Milner----Geremi---Emre----N'Zogbia ----------Viduka?---Martins------------ Subs: Forster Taylor Owen Smith Barton

Interesting to listen to Benjani in the post match interviews. When asked by the BBC interviewer about what's changed about Portsmouth away from home this season compared to last season he said that they now go out there with a mentality to attack and win this season whereas last season they set out to defend against the home team. Interesting to note that some teams still set out to win away from home even if we're not one of them.

I agree. Maybe even 2-5-3 take of Enrique and Faye and bring on Martins and Geremi going for bust. Emre and Martins.

I thought Emre was one of the better players against Reading last week. Set up the own goal too.

Harper, Beye, Rozenhal, Faye, Enrique, Milner, Butt, Emre, N'Zogbia, Smith, Owen 1-1

If only shepherd was there, then we'd have won. Good post Ne5, insightful as always Not necessarily, unlike some people, I always said that Shepherd didn't actually play so wasn't responsible for playing s*** in a couple of Cup Finals, for instance. I've been saying for a year what the problem with the team is, and it isn't so simple as buying a few better defenders. I agree some what but not totally. Our defence looked awful home and away last season. This season our defence looks quite good at home, it's just the tactics and mentality that is putting our defence under too much pressure away from home.

He did and he made his runs without being picked out and generally had to come deep to get involved stifling his natural game so was quite ineffective. Could have had us a penalty when he was through on goal. Not too sure if it was a penalty though.

A good point. It seems to become ingrained on all our managers that they need to get our team keeping clean sheets at all costs. At the end of the day the most important thing is to win; Clean sheets are just a bonus.