Saturday, March 11, 2006

Portsmouth preview.


The return of Harry Redknapp to Portsmouth has not had the desire effect for Pompey fans so far, with many failing to warm again to the arrival of the manager who defected to rivals Southampton little over a year ago. Since his return, Portsmouth have picked up only eight points in thirteen games.

Harry spent big in the transfer window - namely the Spurs trio of Davis, Mendes, Atouba along with Dean Kiely and £5million forward Benjani, but none of them have been able to spark Portsmouth out of a run of poor form which has seen them fail to generate the goals which convert into three point returns.

It is somewhat of a last chance for Portsmouth today as if there is a result in the Birmingham v West Brom game they can begin to claw back some of the deficit between themselves and safety. If there was a team they could have chosen for today's game then I guess City would feature fairly high on the list given our ineptitude away from home of late. Portsmouth have only scored eight goals at home this season and we have failed to net away from home during 2006.

Team wise, Joey Barton is expected to return straight to the side although reports suggest Riera may make way and Musamapa switch to the left which I would be disappointed in as Riera for me offers far more of a threat out wide. After not even featuring on the bench last week, Danny Mills could displace Micah Richards in defence.

Whilst many see this as a game we could conceivably lose, I think we will end our away woes and come away with all three points today in a low scoring encounter.

Prediction - Portsmouth 0 City 1.

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It's a shame about the result. I'm expecting Harry be the first manager in history to relegate both the South-coast rivals.

Once he's got Portsmouth down, he's looking for a move back to Bournemouth to take them down a level too.