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Pompey vs. Villa

Fratton

27/1/09

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Pompey v Villa

Pompey welcome Villa to Fratton tonight, a time when Villa are flying high and Pompey are having a football reality check.

Vital Quotes:

The Villa garden is rosy right now, blooming for all to see, while Pompeys garden looks like the one after the Blue Peter thugs had done the business.

tony Adams is under his first real pressure as Pompey manager, the crowd hasn't been vocal against him yet, but local radio and the forums certainly have.

Pompey Team News:

Pompey should start with Hatden Mullins in the centre along with Davis, Pennant SHOULD start on the right, with either Crouchie alone up front or Nugent making the second striker, unless of course Kanu impressed enough on Saturday.

More importantly Englands number 2 is available after suspension and should displace Cranie.

Player to watch: Johnson

Makes us tick, enough said.

Villa Team News:

Wigans match winner Heskey will make his debut, while Young and Laursen are absent, the first suspended and the second absent.

Player to watch: Agbonlahor

Not as prolific as he was earlier in the season but the main goal threat.

Match Facts & Stats

Next Fixtures:

Vital F1 Prediction League - Join now for Monaco

Writer: paultsmouth

Date:Tuesday January 27 2009

Time: 6:48AM

Your Comments

Heskey is our main worry; a big handful. Let's hope we don't switch off after 89 mins again.

UKTony

Any predictions guys, settle for a draw but fear we may lose by the odd goal.

bluedr

I agree with UKTony - Heskey is the man to watch for Villa. We will have a fighting chance if TA plays players in their favoured positions. I think Nugget should be given a chance up front with Crouchy in a 4-4-2. Listen up TA - that formation will accomodate ALL our best players in their FAVOURED positions. This in turn may mean a victory!!

PFCGino

Someone called me a pessimist the other day! If I were then I wouldn't be so disappointed. My forecast, for what it's worth, is that TA will finally realise we need to play 4-4-2 and we'll tear Villa apart, winning 4-1 with a Crouch hat-trick. This will be th turning point of our season and we'll go on a run and finish 9th.

NinjaTim

Tim thats sounds great can i watch the same game as you? but i think we actually might just scrape a win croucy is well over due a goal

sea-juicer

How is TA going to start tonite. Nugent in goal, Pennent at centre back, Crouch left back, Craine centre forward. It wouldn't surprise me! Play 442 & have a go.

storagematt

3-1 Pompey....lets have 1 up front, put Traore left back (as thats what he actually was at the gooners) so we got Pennant and Belhaj getting forward to help out, Davis and Mullins, with Pele just behind Crouch!....theirs no place for Nugent in my team!

CharlieChimes

heard Rio-cokehead might be out too...result.

CharlieChimes

CharlieChimes you're on another planet!! Crouch can't play up front on his own - especially when we're dinking long balls up to him - who's he gonna play it down to?! 4-4-2 is the way to go

PFCGino

had we not been facing one of the 'big 4' - and villa and one of this now! - i suspect we would have gone 4-4-2, but as its villa i cannot see anything other than this, and tbh im ok with this so long as we have genuine width in the wide areas, pennant and belhadj gives this... mullins in with davis in the middle, i would take a risk and play pele, but we wont do that so chances are kaboul will return in the middle of the park, or wilson - where was he saturday? tbh i would drop sol and put kaboul alongside distin.
either way, for some bizarre, crazy reason i feel we will get the points tonight - it makes it worse off all as ive not seen us win at home for something like 2month (well none of us have) and as ive got to let me head rule my heart i cannot go tonight, your own health must come first...

pompeyrug

I think we might struggle, tiredness has definitely been creeping in and we're without 2 of our best players, Young and Laursen. That said, Adams seems to be struggling to get any sort of balance to your team so it could be a case of which team plays worse!

pjvilla

If we must have 2 up front, why not Kanu??? it worked pretty well against Milan! I CANNOT believe Nugent is any good...Im sorry, but the guy was a bad buy!...I do think we can play one up front, if we have a decent attacking midfielder and the service is decent, Belhaj and Pennant are blatently the best crossers of the ball so put them on the wings and Pele's ment to be a good attachking force, so put him behind!...you can have a negative 4-5-1 and a positive 4-5-1..it rests on the players..

CharlieChimes

I see what CharlieChimes is on - Last week Kanu and Crouchy looked better in the second half (well less crap) up front than Nuge and Crouchy in the first half. If we have two big lads up front then lets get these wingers on the wings

hammersmithblue

Yeah but last week Nugent was playing on the wing was he not? With Pennant in the middle? Traore would be better down the left than Belhadj imo, he is better at beating players and is very very quick, which you need on the wings - any old mug can cross a ball, but it's getting into the position to do it in the first place that is key.

PFCGino

COME ON BLUES!!!! 442 please Tony, players in the right positions and we'll be just fine PLAY UP POMPEY !!!

tommo3146

Pele's not even on the bench? That's disappointing to me, but I'll trust in TA.

pompeywa

442 it is PUP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

pentonpompey

Sean Davis looks off the pace today, mullins looks promising.

pompeywa

Possibly a kiss ofdeath, but Distan sounds awesome, Mullins sounds ok as well

pentonpompey

What did I say?....Ship! Heskey!....

pentonpompey

Jesus...horrific defending.

pompeywa

Well taken goal too!

pentonpompey

Well I always thought that Heskey was going to score in this game, but I at least thought we would grab a goal first!

pompeywa

I really don't think that Kanu was the right choice for this game. I would have preferred a 451 with a midfielder in the hole.

pompeywa

Sad to say i'm looking for positives...Oh yes, Scumton are 2-0 down at Norwich

pentonpompey

We have had 60% of posession, useless if we don't do anything with it

pentonpompey

They are going to shut up shop and kill our game. Obvious as we have no pace up front and we are too one dimentional!

pentonpompey

Mullins really should've scored.

pompeywa

Mullins again having a pop...Fair play that man!

pentonpompey

Yeah we can't seem to penetrate their back 4. And Pennant has already lost the corner job.

pompeywa

Sol Campbell looks old...when is Kaboul back?

pompeywa

What was Bejhadj think hes doing?

pompeywa

Mullins done okdon't you think?

pentonpompey

Trouble is with bellend he young rash and inexperianced

pentonpompey

Yeah he kind of fizzled out though. Cambell and Davis looked bad, at least HH is doing well.

pompeywa

Yeah I am suprised that his foul didn't get him a red card tbh.

pompeywa

HH always puts in a shift! he's well worth his weekly

pentonpompey

Too cautious, no invention.

NinjaTim

Well done tony! Kaboul was definitely our weak link in the first half. We look more confident already.

pompeywa

Campbell replaced by Kaboul.

NinjaTim

yeah thats what i meant.

pompeywa

Crouch!

pompeywa

70% possesion, could we have turned a corner.

pompeywa

it gets worse, Scumton 2-2

pentonpompey

10th corner!!!!

pentonpompey

Kaboul really needs to learn how to pass.

pompeywa

Stupid stupid stupid

pompeywa

Bellend has lived up to his name!!!!!

pentonpompey

Well I look forward to having Traore this weekend.

pompeywa

Well I most say I don't like the fact that we are booing Utaka before he even got on the pitch. Thats not going to help his confidence.

pompeywa

Dickhead. Should have gone in the first half.

NinjaTim

Belhadj, I was referring to!

NinjaTim

Wa I'm with you on that. I don't like the guy but if he hasn't even touched the ball and your booed., Don't expect the man to put in a shift

pentonpompey

10 corners in the second half and we've done nothing with them, surely we practice these in training?

pentonpompey

It surely doesn't look like it, half of them having cleared the front man. That said Villa just had one of the worst i've seen for awhile.

pompeywa

i must say though Utaka may have not done much on the ball but the effort is there, and i appreciate that.

pompeywa

Substituition means 1-0 the Villa

pentonpompey

So close from Utaka...he could yet come good.

pompeywa

Can I say one thing? all the time we rely on just Crouchie, we are in HUGE trouble! We've been doing this for ages and it lacks creativity and imagination and relies too much on one man

pentonpompey

I think we're *****ed

pentonpompey

I don't think we are ****** yet, that is Stoke and Brum territory but while I saw positives this game, we need more consistency. but we will be just above bottom tomorrow night.

pompeywa

One dimensional and easy to play against. I fear for us now - it'll be a tough three months now.

NinjaTim

Before anyone says anything, we've tried, played well at times. Ultimately we're just not up to it at the moment. It certainly helps to have 11 players, Bellend needs to grow up! Not saying get rid of Adams, But there must be a reason this group of players can't win for toffee!!

pentonpompey

I really don't think it was Adams' fault, the players looked like they really wanted it just didn't know where to go at times. Kaboul had a mare whenever on the ball. We really had a good chance to win 17 corners! But I think that we are close, Fulham got shut out again today so hopefully we can go and grab points at Craven.

pompeywa

dear oh dear was it really 17 corners? we can't even put one it!

pentonpompey

We still need a game changing player, Mullins looked like a good signing today but if we get Saviola that would be massive. We desperately need someone to run off Crouch and Nugent/Utaka are not the answer.

pompeywa

brilliant performance. shame about there goal really.

pompeycarpet

if you look at the stats, we dominated. we just couldn;t finish anything!

pompeycarpet

oh, and to the people who say we should have changed something... we had loads of shots, loads of corners, created loads of chances... why would he change that?

pompeycarpet

Yeah as I said Adams was definitely not the problem. If one would have gone in the floodgates would have opened, I have faith that we will turn it around.

pompeywa

CAn't really fault anybody tonight - We were equal if not better than them until they scored then we were a bit shaky until ten mins before the break - The second half saw a really spirited performnace that unfortunatley had no end result ..Somebody to put the ball into the back of the net would be nice !

Chix

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