Post-Spurs ramblings

Last updated : 14 August 2005 By Keith Allman

Aaah, the first game of the season. Walking up the steps of the Fratton End to see the sun-drenched Fratton turf; shorts and t-shirts all round and a feeling of optimism. Plenty of exciting attacking football and an atmosphere of "no fear" as anyone can beat anyone. Goals, goals, goals! New signings making their big impression - hell, even Amdy Faye looked good for his first month here. That's what it's all about, isn't it.

Isn't it? Guys? Er, say it is! PLEASE!

Let's not beat about the bush with this one; today's game was pretty rubbish. I doubt many Spurs fans will cherish the memory of the match this afternoon simply because the general quality of play was all round pretty poor. After all, other than their own two attempts on target and one decent Westerveld save, the visitors didn't really have much else to shout about other than a fair share of the possession. We certainly deserved to be level at half time although I'd say the full time score was about fair, but this game was a vast anti-climax to the pre-season build up.

Even so, it's hardly time to push the panic buttons yet. I was trying to work out whether or not today was "Spurs being good" or "Pompey being crap" and I've decided that it was a mix between the two. The bottom line, however, is that come the end of the season Tottenham will probably be pushing for Europe whilst we'll be floating around mid/lower table, and they'll beat a lot of other teams on their travels this campaign. I think my major concern is really West Brom next week; if we turn in a similar dis-interested performance and lose by a similar margin then I might be slightly more jittery.

So what was the problem?

- I think our main concern today was up front. LuaLua is meant to be leading the line as our main striker and yet just seems to play wherever the hell he feels like. Sometimes he pops up on the half way line, sometimes on the right wing, sometimes at centre back - there was no discipline in his play. Worst of all was the end of the first half when he didn't get the ball where he wanted so decided to throw a strop, wave his arms around and stand in the same spot and play with his shirt for thirty seconds. You're getting paid £20,000 a week you bloody pansy, so pack it in and get on with the game. Karadas didn't have a dream debut and I get a nasty feeling that he's going to be the next boo boy and he's got a bit of work to do to win over sceptical fans. Pericard tried, bless him, but clearly hasn't got the match fitness. Mbesuma barely touched the ball and came on when we were a lost cause but hardly set the game alight in the "come on with ten minutes to go and score a hat trick" way we all dreamed he might on Friday night. Let's be honest - we could still be playing now, even after Paul Robinson has long since disappeared to the pie shop, and we wouldn't have scored.

- The midfield was ok but I've got a bone to pick with Robert. We know you can shoot from forty yards, we've seen it on Match Of The Day. But you don't have to do it every time you get the ball. Some of his attempts from free kicks were so pathetic that he was an absolute parody of himself.

- The wings are certainly an "interesting" part of our tactics. On the right, for example, you have Griffin (who barely crosses the half way line and makes a living out of breaking legs) and Mornar (who is actually a striker). On the left you have Robert (who you'd expect to be the furthest forward of any Pompey player the majority of the time) and Vignal (who actually spends most time more advanced than the aforementioned fellow Frenchman). A lot of people thought Vignal did well today and had him as man of the match but personally I was far from impressed; considering he's meant to be left back he'd do well to actually stay there rather than bombing forward at every opportunity. From the amount of times he fell over he also seems to have inherited Ricardo Fuller's boots (copyright T. Hawke)

The defence I thought did rather well altogether, apart from the two errors which caused the goals. Unfortunately, this is like saying "My parachute did well apart from the time it failed and I died". 100% concentration for 90 minutes is the name of the game and those two slips proved crucial in the end; as I said earlier Spurs hardly had many chances but they took theirs - we served them up on a plate with garnish. Meanwhile we had our couple of chances and failed to take them. Bugger.

It's not the end of the world, although it is a pain to be bottom of the Premiership for the first time ever. Especially considering that we only lost 2-0 and normally you can rely on someone else to take a proper 4 or 5 goal tonking on the first day and occupy that position for you. There's a lot of work to be done but at the same time it's not time to panic; the biggest worry is that we just don't seem to be a team yet and there seems to be communication problems at times. Hopefully when the new signings bed in and the team has played a few games together we can start to string results together. But sadly in this league you have to hit the ground running and don't get the chance to feel your way in.

I expected a draw or defeat today, but I didn't really expect the performance we got which reminded me of every game post-Southampton last season; going through the motions because we knew it didn't really matter anymore. A good start has kept us up in the last couple of years and we can't afford to blow it with the new stadium now underway. A big week on the training ground ahead and if we can get something at West Brom then the confidence will be back for Villa on Tuesday.

Great, isn't it? The Premier League isn't even twelve hours old and already I've got no fingernails, far more stressed than I was this time last week and I've started to single out games as "must win".