Pompey Gossip

I am the third highest poster on the Pompey Gossip website with 183 posts (hence a little drought on this blog) and have spent 1 day 13 hours and 21 minutes to date on the website, which makes me the 7th highest attender.

These statistics are just to show you that I have thrown myself with gusto into my hobby, which frees me from my other theatrical endeavours (itemised on my Boanerges blog). I love Pompey as my profile reveals and attend every home match that I can. I am not an away supporter as I tend to attend Hawks' (Havant and Waterlooville) games when Pompey are away.

Pompey Gossip have joined the Pompey Virtual Alliance, who are organising a meeting with Peter Storrie, Pompey CEO, just before the home game against Bolton. Pompey Gossip have asked me to go along to the meeting as their representative. To say I am chuffed is an understatement and I am thoroughly looking forward to the meeting and reporting back on it to the other Gossipers, who are worldwide in Canada, Dubai, Australia, Hong Kong and other places as well as Portsmouth. The meeting hopes to clarify the current position at the club and to find ways to help the club attract back the missing fans.

I think the club has to accept that the previous regime was built upon shaky foundations employing overpriced and overpaid footballers. This brought some success with high table finishes and of course the FA Cup. However it now transpires that this was at some considerable cost to the club and almost put us in administration. We were living in dreams and now reality has set in. We are a leaner meaner fighting machine. We have had a summer of uncertainty and upheaval, and have become something of a laughing stock in the football world. Pompey are now one of the favourites for the drop at the end of the season.

This is reinforced by four defeats in our first four games. However I now believe we have a squad of players, who are Pompey through and through, who are battlers and 100 percenters. Yes we have lost stars and glamour but I believe we are better for it. I also believe we may have shed some of the more superficial fans, who came along for the FA Cup and the stars and the glamour. This was inevitable and not altogether a bad thing. The club does need to build up its fan base. The first two games only had just over 17000 fans there and this in a stadium which holds at least 20000 (leaving aside the plans to expand the capacity to 28000). Pompey needs to win back those 3000 fans to just be within reach of breaking even.

The only way to do that is to start winning games here at Fratton Park. You can lower prices in order to tempt them back but you need to offer them a diet of attacking football and good results that makes them want to come back again and again.

The responsibility rests with Paul Hart, the manager. He is the bookies' favourite to be the first Premier League manager to lose his job this autumn. The chairman has moved to say this will not be the case. I am not a particular fan of Paul Hart as he did save us last season but by playing attritional football with a 4-5-1 system. It worked and kept us in the Premier League but the question this season is "Does he have other systems he can use? Especially with the players he has bought in?"

In the Fulham and Manchester City home games (this also applies to the away game at Birmingham) we were never over run or overwhelmed by either team. We held them most of the time.

In both games defensive errors let in a single goal. In the Fulham game Clint Dempsey should have been closed down before he let fly on the edge of the box. The fact that his shot took a wicked deflection off Zamora's arse just added salt to the wound. In the Manchester City game, Mokoena let Adebayor go at a corner and the prolific goal scorer had a clear header on goal. These defensive errors however were not what cost us the games.

The games were lost because we were toothless in front of goal. We had chances but either headers were muffed, or passes were delayed because of lack of support in the box, or shots were simply blazed over the bar or straight at the goalkeeper. David Nugent is now on loan at Burnley and complaining of his treatment at Pompey because he was played out of position. However he was guilty of missing chances galore in the box and even in the six yard box. He needed to score to be a goal scorer. I liked the lad but he could hardly be described as a goal scorer.

I believe Paul Hart has assembled a squad and team that can take the fight to the enemy. I agree with him in defending staunchly but would like him to assemble a team that can counter attack more efficiently and effectively. I think he has a squad to be able to do that as I explain below. Paul Hart also needs a more attack minded number two to counter balance his own thinking as an ex centre half.

At the moment our two backs are still on the recovery list, which means we are using two players who are a bit inconsistent as backs but who are versatile and probably better used as midfielders upon the return of Finnan and Hreidarrson. For the moment our back line will look something like: Borre, Kaboul, Ben-Haim and Belhadj. I would protect this back line with two defensive midfielders or stoppers in Mokoena (captain) and Brown. These six players would form my basic defensive unit.

The other four outfield players would form my counter attack unit. This would be a quartet of fast attacking midfielders and strikers, who are interchangeable. They would be able to keep the ball and use it to attack the final third and get into the opposing box.

The midfielders would be chosen from Boateng (Prince), O'Hara and Yebda. The strikers would be chosen from Smith, Dindane(Dino) and Piquionne (Fred). The Prince says he is an attacking midfielder and Paul Hart says Yebda is, and both should be given the chance to prove it alongside O'Hara, the sparky young midfielder on loan from Spurs until January. Dino is not yet match fit and needs to be gently introduced so in the meantime Smith should be played in that position alongside Fred.

All four of the counter attack quartet should be encouraged to go for goal themselves or at least be heavily involved in assists and seen frequently in the opposition box. I think Dino might be capable of 20 goals but if each of the quartet was given a target of 10 goals each, there would be our saving in the league.

There are other defensive midfielders that can be brought on to close a game down or replace tired, injured or suspended players ( I expect my stoppers to be earning yellow cards through robust but fair tackling). We have only the six players mentioned from which to choose the counter attack quartet. Utaka can possibly be used in there but Kanu would present a different way of attacking. One of the things I would be doing from now until January is identifying the players who can reinforce or even replace the counter attack quartet. I shall enjoy putting forward candidates for Mr Hart to consider over the next few months.

The first thing that has to happen to bring back those missing fans is to accept that the home game against Bolton this Saturday is a six pointer. Both teams languish on the bottom of the table. A draw is not enough but a win would lift us over them. We must make ourselves a force to be reckoned with here at Fratton Park.

Wigan and Burnley must be seen as possible wins with Everton and Spurs seen as not impossible but more likely draws. Hopefully we can win away at Wolves and possibly Hull and Blackburn. We must give a good account of ourselves against Man. U, Liverpool and Arsenal on our own ground and take any chances that come our way - at least make it very uncomfortable for them. If we could manage draws away at Villa, Stoke, Sunderland, West Ham and Fulham, then we will be in a good position at Christmas.

Hopefully the three newcomers to the league will also have found it tougher going after their initial honeymoon period. If we are sitting in amongst a group of teams on around the same points with another group safely below us, then the club will be doing really well and those fans will start coming back. Perhaps not the glamour seekers but real fans who support their team because it is their team.