Well what a great way to end 2005 that was! A well deserved win and it's obvious that Redknapp has had a positive effect on the team as that is now 7 points from 9 at home with only one goal conceeded since he has returned.
Before the game there was a gasp of horror as it was announced that Sander Westerveld would replace Jamie Ashdown in goal after an injury in the warm-up. However Sander was rarely called into action today and did not have a save to make even if he did make a couple of dodgy distribrutions today but when it's Tomasz Radzinski completely wasting the chances he was given then there really wasn't too much reason to worry.
Every player in a Pompey shirt played well today especially the defence as a unit who never gave Fulham much of a sniff at our goal with only one real chance at the start of the game gifted to Radzinski who happily blazed it over. I thought the midfield were very combative and creative this afternoon, Richard Hughes seems to have improved a lot recently and Gary O'Neil was his usual industrious self and helped himself to a second goal in consecutive home games. The front two gave the shaky Fulham backline allsorts of problems too with Lua Lua's pace and trickery combined with Dario Silva's excellent flick ons and work-rate forcing the Fulham centre backs to panic whenever the ball came into their box and were happy to just clear the ball out for a corner.
If I can have any complaints about today's performance it's that we should have scored more goals. We were a bit guilty of missing some chances that should have ended up with the ball in the back of the net and I did start to get a little anxious when we failed to kill Fulham off as it has been the story of our season. However having said that I think it was our best performance to date. Whether you'll agree with that is another story.. so feel free to mail me if you don't (or even if you do) agree.
And so we say goodbye to 2005 with renewed optimism that we can get ourselves out of relegation and have a good 2006. I wish all Pompey fans a Happy New Year!
Before the game there was a gasp of horror as it was announced that Sander Westerveld would replace Jamie Ashdown in goal after an injury in the warm-up. However Sander was rarely called into action today and did not have a save to make even if he did make a couple of dodgy distribrutions today but when it's Tomasz Radzinski completely wasting the chances he was given then there really wasn't too much reason to worry.
Every player in a Pompey shirt played well today especially the defence as a unit who never gave Fulham much of a sniff at our goal with only one real chance at the start of the game gifted to Radzinski who happily blazed it over. I thought the midfield were very combative and creative this afternoon, Richard Hughes seems to have improved a lot recently and Gary O'Neil was his usual industrious self and helped himself to a second goal in consecutive home games. The front two gave the shaky Fulham backline allsorts of problems too with Lua Lua's pace and trickery combined with Dario Silva's excellent flick ons and work-rate forcing the Fulham centre backs to panic whenever the ball came into their box and were happy to just clear the ball out for a corner.
If I can have any complaints about today's performance it's that we should have scored more goals. We were a bit guilty of missing some chances that should have ended up with the ball in the back of the net and I did start to get a little anxious when we failed to kill Fulham off as it has been the story of our season. However having said that I think it was our best performance to date. Whether you'll agree with that is another story.. so feel free to mail me if you don't (or even if you do) agree.
And so we say goodbye to 2005 with renewed optimism that we can get ourselves out of relegation and have a good 2006. I wish all Pompey fans a Happy New Year!