The College Dropout

It's time we faced up to the reality that teams like Pompey are simply bigger and better than us. In all reality we are a lower-rung premier league team with a fairly formidible home ground which keeps us from getting relegated each year. Any kind of genuine quality will bring us undone every time, ditto any kind of genuine heart. Pompey played decent, top 8 standard EPL football. You simply cannot play football like that when you have the likes of Milner, Butt, Smith and (on todays form) Barton in your side. Simply put, we have the three shortest attackers going around on. They have one of the most physically big and strong back lines going. So our entire attack is lobbing in balls at head height to their defensive line. A-Grade tactics there. Like any professional outfit would do, they've sent that s*** back with interest. Better, yes, a bigger club? No. Harry has done quite well with them and it has taken a few years. Allardyce has had months, chill out. That goes for the rest of you knee-jerkers. Tbf, did Pompey get bummed by Newcastle 4-1 at Fratton Park? What does that have to do with anything? The point in your first post seems to be in a few years Sam will sort it out the same way Harry sorted out Portmouth and that patience is needed. Whilst this might happen, you have to concede that most managers that take a while to get things going don't get whooped at home by their league rivals. That's what happens to the Roeders and Souness' of the world. Why not? Teams get whooped all the time. Recall Liverpool taking one on the chin to Arse last season. 10 minutes of shitty football, mate. It doesn't mean anything long term. I think Sam deserves the season. I agree Sam should have the season but we shouldn't ignore the result. That was in the league cup. After they had already beaten Arsenal. Y'know winning the Champions League and such kinda buys you more time to get things right in the eyes of the fans.

Yes, like Sven Goran Eriksson. Until you get beaten 6-0 and then you have to sack them, and then 'go British', until that manager gets beaten and then you have to sack them, and 'go foreign'. It's at times like this I wish many fans would go bloody interstellar rather than foreign, and launch themselves into the sun. Portsmouth aren't Chelsea. We are at home. We haven't played some excellent football. None of our new signings have looked as good as Elano. We are not 3rd. Whilst I agree with your sentiments, that is a very poor example.

It's time we faced up to the reality that teams like Pompey are simply bigger and better than us. In all reality we are a lower-rung premier league team with a fairly formidible home ground which keeps us from getting relegated each year. Any kind of genuine quality will bring us undone every time, ditto any kind of genuine heart. Pompey played decent, top 8 standard EPL football. You simply cannot play football like that when you have the likes of Milner, Butt, Smith and (on todays form) Barton in your side. Simply put, we have the three shortest attackers going around on. They have one of the most physically big and strong back lines going. So our entire attack is lobbing in balls at head height to their defensive line. A-Grade tactics there. Like any professional outfit would do, they've sent that s*** back with interest. Better, yes, a bigger club? No. Harry has done quite well with them and it has taken a few years. Allardyce has had months, chill out. That goes for the rest of you knee-jerkers. Tbf, did Pompey get bummed by Newcastle 4-1 at Fratton Park? What does that have to do with anything? The point in your first post seems to be in a few years Sam will sort it out the same way Harry sorted out Portmouth and that patience is needed. Whilst this might happen, you have to concede that most managers that take a while to get things going don't get whooped at home by their league rivals. That's what happens to the Roeders and Souness' of the world.

Once again I repeat. We wasn't getting raped by our league rivals 4-1 at home.

Have you seen how much money these lot get for doing nothing? We do pay some very generous wages. I'd think half this side get paid more than Riise does. IN some cases 3 times as much.

It's time we faced up to the reality that teams like Pompey are simply bigger and better than us. In all reality we are a lower-rung premier league team with a fairly formidible home ground which keeps us from getting relegated each year. Any kind of genuine quality will bring us undone every time, ditto any kind of genuine heart. Pompey played decent, top 8 standard EPL football. You simply cannot play football like that when you have the likes of Milner, Butt, Smith and (on todays form) Barton in your side. Simply put, we have the three shortest attackers going around on. They have one of the most physically big and strong back lines going. So our entire attack is lobbing in balls at head height to their defensive line. A-Grade tactics there. Like any professional outfit would do, they've sent that s*** back with interest. Better, yes, a bigger club? No. Harry has done quite well with them and it has taken a few years. Allardyce has had months, chill out. That goes for the rest of you knee-jerkers. Tbf, did Pompey get bummed by Newcastle 4-1 at Fratton Park?

Portsmouth are far better than B'Ham.

Squad Rotation.

To be fair to Roeder. He didn't spunk £45M on Boumsong, Luque, Owen, Parker, Faye & Babayaro.

Is Shay going to have this problem permanently? As much as I have a go at him I think it's important for a club to have a permanent #1.

I'd still sign Gilberto.

Bought Pascal Cygan and put him ahead of Upson..smh I'll shut up now.

Aye Sam does has already signed a few players pushing 30... but still...

Thing is, if Sam sells Martins & Owen and replaces them with players to play 433 he'll need instant success. Selling these popular players would require him to get it right within the next season.

Yes

Looking at his hair colour will make you feel better... Yeah he'd swap places with you in an instant if he could have brown hair.

Good point.

I don't think any of them were good enough for Arsenal or right for his system. No point flogging a dead horse, he moved them on and they haven't suffered for going to Arsenal. They were given a good footballing education and are playing in the Premier League now. Sidwell is another example. Can you imagine the day when our academy rejects are players like these? I assume Newcastle are the type of club Platini goes for, buying average players for top prices while being seen as a graveyard for talent (Hugo Viana, anyone?). Not true. Upson was directly replaced by Pascal Cygan, a simply terrible defender. Who has been the better player for the last 16 months, Rosicky or Bentley? Neither were given the chance or it seems shown that they were valuable players. I don't think any of them were good enough for Arsenal and I'm sure their fans would agree. I'd also say Rosicky is a better player than Bentley and certainly more suited to Arsenal's style of play. Cygan was a mistake, but that doesn't make Upson a champions league quality defender. Still never gave either of them a chance, he was prepared to give Cygan a chance even though he was some 28 year old, slow as owt ball head. From what I saw Rosicky was fabulous at Dortmund but from the 12+ months he's been at Arsenal he's nowt special. Bentley has a great first touch; good short, crisp passing and has the pace and skill to beat a man. His final ball and decision making is also better than Rosicky. I'd say he does fit in with the Arsenal style of play. I'd also assume Bentley has scored more Premiership goals than Rosicky within the same time span. Rosicky isn't clearly a level above Bentley imo, i'd probably give Bentley the edge. With Bergkamp, Pires & Ljungberg getting old and succumbing to several injuries Wenger didn't have much faith in his ability to give him a decent crack at the whip which is why he left.

I don't think any of them were good enough for Arsenal or right for his system. No point flogging a dead horse, he moved them on and they haven't suffered for going to Arsenal. They were given a good footballing education and are playing in the Premier League now. Sidwell is another example. Can you imagine the day when our academy rejects are players like these? I assume Newcastle are the type of club Platini goes for, buying average players for top prices while being seen as a graveyard for talent (Hugo Viana, anyone?). Not true. Upson was directly replaced by Pascal Cygan, a simply terrible defender. Who has been the better player for the last 16 months, Rosicky or Bentley? Neither were given the chance or it seems shown that they were valuable players.

To be fair the Bentleys and Upsons never got much of a chance however they've managed to prove themselves elsewhere.

If he was half a foot shorter he'd simply be a decent mid-level Premiership striker. His height has propelled him to L'Pool and England status.

Should this be merged with Rob W's threads? Same point being raised. We've had a fairly "easy" start, the next batch of fixtures look nails.

What is tackles won? I saw Gerrard make 2 excellent sliding tackles. This once again proves why stats are fairly useless. I'd put money on all Arsenal midfielders having a higher pass completion rate than any Arsenal midfielder, seeing as after 2 passes the tactic was too lump it towards Toure so he can skin all the midfielders for the umpteenth time.

Because Allardyce is renowned for struggling against the big 4? Hate this "big 4" phrase. Why not "big 5" or "big 2?" Anyway, it doesn't matter what we do against the "big 4" if we do s**** against all the rest. Well considering one of his points was about how Sam will cope with one of the bigger sides then I think its quite relevant. I doubt his comment needs to be taken so literally, tbh. What he's saying is something like, "how negative will Allardyce be against some of the better teams?" Fact is, if we beat the "big 4" and lose against everyone else we'd be relegated. The point you appeared to be making is that at Bolton, Allardyce had a decent record against the "big 4." Well, my take on that point is that at this stage it's irrelevant what his record was against the "big 4." BTW During his time as Bolton manager we were in the top 4 a couple of times (making us one of the "big 4" at that point in time) and I recall us thrashing them more than once. Regardless of the defeat. I think the defence is much better already than last year although there is still the odd unwanted error. The problems now for me has shifted to the midfield which normally supplies the cohesion and fluency to a side....Dare I say we are still missing a 'fulcrum'. This is also being hampered by some bizarre positioning and team selections. Without stirring a hornets nest, the defence was never the major problem despite the poor personnel. Since Souness decimated Robson's team the problem has been a combination of a lack of decent forward play and midfield play. This prevents us dictating and controlling games, resulting in the defence being put under too much pressure. I said ages ago that you could put the best 4 defenders in the country in our team and we'd still leak goals due to the pressure they'd be under. Obviously better defenders are important and we needed better players at the back, but we also need to control games and we won't do that by improving individuals at the back. Remember that we were a top 4 team under Robson with poor defenders. That's because we had the players ahead of them to threaten the opposition and to control football matches, thus proving it's possible to do well under those circumstances. If you can't dictate and control games you'll get nowhere, which is why the problem has been midfield/strikers for a while now and is why we're average/poor most of the time even with better defenders now. Would Spurs be an example of this last season?