The Story So Far

Still, now we come to ourselves. Before I started this column I thought I'd bring together all the stats for the season and compare them to our two previous Premiership campaigns, and I had a vague idea what they would say. For a start, it's obvious to all and sundry that we have a dire lack of goals in the team and the facts bear this out; we've scored 7 this season compared to 16 by this point last year and 11 the season before that (admittedly helped in both cases by sticking 4 past Bolton and Fulham respectively, but they all count). But one thing that did surprise me was the defence; although we had our fair share of early season goalkeeper cock-ups and inidividual errors, I still thought we'd be doing ok in comparison - after all, before Saturday, we'd only conceded three in five, a run that included two clean sheets. But no, again we're doing worse than before. We've conceded 12 this season compared to 11 last and just 9 the year before, and you don't have to be a football expert to know that if you're conceding more than you score then you're in deep trouble.

And so it is; we're 17th with 7 points when last year we were 9th with 15, and 11th with 12 the year before that. You don't need me to remind you how much our start to the season helped us in the relegation mix-up at the end of the campaign either, I'm sure.

Perhaps one of the most frustrating things about this season so far is that we haven't really been tonked at any particular point. We struggled to keep up with Spurs on the first day of the season and didn't really get going until late on against West Brom, but other than that no-one has really out-played us. You can point to games like Villa and Newcastle at Fratton as times where we should've got three points also, but that's why it's so bloody irritating. If we were genuinely absolutely bobbins and were getting thrashed by three or four goal margins week in week out then it would be a bit easier to take; the fact that out of our five defeats only one - Spurs - has been by more than a one goal margin is what makes it so much more irritating. Even moreso when you consider that against Man City and Charlton we actually took the lead before buggering it up.

So let's turn our focus to the individual areas of the pitch and how they've done this season.

Goalkeepers - Hmm. Sander Westerveld I thought would be a good solid signing - which shows how much I know about football - but made a string of hilarious errors before being dropped. Jamie Ashdown has done ok (although we'd best forget about Gillingham) and seems to have a better understanding with the defence, despite his occasional urge to go walkies.

Defence - Our defence are an enigma wrapped in a riddle. For vast portions of the game they can go along without looking threatened and then they all decide to turn off at the same point for a split second and gift a goal or two. People will add extra concern to this in the fact that Stefanovic is our captain and plays in our backline, so surely should be taking more control of the situation. And yes, he probably should. Priske has looked one of our better buys this season though.

Midfield - A label of "quantity rather than quality" has (perhaps unfairly) been thrown at the centre of the park, but out of the new signings Viafara and Vukic are improving after slow starts and Diao hasn't seemed out of place. Robert is getting a lot of stick but has played a part in over half our goals, as much as it's easily forgotten. Gary O'Neil has been an absolute revelation this season, but we still need more goals from the centre of the park if we're to progress. What's more, it's still a concern that a lot of our midfielders fit into the "holding role" description and the players we have down as "creative" are rather erratic.

Strikers - As referred to previously, we are struggling here. Badly. Out of our mighty seven goal tally, only three have been scored by the forward line. And in a way I suppose that's good since no-one wants to be depending on just one player to save the team every week, but an attacker with the ability to pop in ten a season wouldn't go amiss. Good luck trying to find one though; even most of the popular suggestions like Ashton are hardly a guarantee of sticking it in the onion bag.

And finally the manager. I get the impression that a lot of fans don't really blame Perrin for us loitering near the relegation zone as he's been working on a tight budget and had his hands tied to a certain extent. There's been a backlash to him after the Charlton game as he clearly made a balls up of it, but I find it amusing how fans are so quick and loud to condemn a mistake when, after getting it pretty much spot on up at Boro, there was nary a whisper of congratulation. Such is football I suppose. The media have hardly made his job easier with constant pressure heaped on from day one, but I still think it would be a vast mistake to sack him - especially since there won't be many managers queueing up to get involved thanks to our bad PR in recent times.

Overall conclusion then; must do better. I still maintain that with a goalscorer we could be comfortable this season but that's true of a hell of a lot of teams. Finding one is the difficult part and I've yet to hear many decent and viable suggestions. It doesn't help that our strikers consist mainly of recovering players, players who have never been prolific or players who are not Premiership quality. Still, we shall see, and there's still a long time to go

and a lot of points to be played for.