Match Thread: Spurs vs Portsmouth

[Neil_Vaughan]

Talk about the game in here before, during and after.

[deadleyledley]

Does anyone have any latest team news?

[SurreySpur]

I think i read somewhere yesterday that Ledley should be fit along with Jermain Defoe. Although i expect Defoe will start on the bench despite his excellent recent record against pompey.

[Spur]

Can't be leaving Keano out now. Hopefully Berba is back too.

[suBerb]

Can't be leaving Keano out now. Hopefully Berba is back too.

Stoichkov said today that Berbatov will play vs Holland. So, I hope that Berby will play tomorrow. Otherwise, there may be a huge conflict between Jol and Stoichkov, for Jol said Berbatov will play for Bulgaria only if he plays tomorrow...You know Berbatov is the key player of Bulgaria. He started in 18 qualifying games so far and scored 17 goals. In this respect he's almost twice more effective than the likes of Henry, Sheva, Raul and Nistelrooy...Bulgaria never lost a game when Berbatov scored...

[hastingsyid]

im not even gonna bother predicting a result as everytime i do i get it completely wrong.....**** it 2-0 to pompey

[suBerb]

Martin Jol reports that Dimitar Berbatov is back in the squad for Sunday's encounter with Portsmouth at the Lane.


Good news mates!

[jrio]

He's in the squad and Jol has condemned Mido's comments as irresponsible and disrespectful. I'd read into that there is a very strong chance of Berbatov starting and Mido not even making the bench.

[highlander]

i dont think id start with berbie as there are definate questions over his injury and fitness. i read somewhere that Defoe & Davids will be back though so i expect them to be in the squad and on the bench

[jrio]

A last minute winner for Sheff Utd puts our position properly in perspective. We need to be looking at win/draw/win for the next 3 but I'm guessing we draw with Pompey and lose to Villa. Mido's ludicrous claim has(does he really believe Campbell's one of the easiest defenders he's played against because he can't really believe the crowd needs to be stoked up any more)been particularly unhelpful and not one you'd expect from a player yet to score this season and who missed a clear chance in his last game. I think we'll see both King and Berbatov return, Murphy will get one more chance and Davids replacing Ziegler on the left.

[mjbmedia]

i think if MJ is clever he can use Midos comments to his advantage.

make Mido go out and prove his words, simple as, if he doesnt prove it then hes dropped for a long time, if he does prove it then maybe Berby has to wait or at least rotate.
Bearing in mind Midos success against Campbell , id say the comments were justified as they were only his views in light of the successes hes had v Campbell.

Think MJ needs to sort himself and his comments out too before he goes criticising his players too much ;)

[suBerb]

make Mido go out and prove his words, simple as, if he doesnt prove it then hes dropped for a long time, if he does prove it then maybe Berby has to wait or at least rotate.


If Berby was ready to wait he'd move to a bigger club. He didn't come here to sit on the bench...He wants to play for he wants to be one of the best center-forwards in the world, if not the very best. Simple as that.

[Chinaman]

But who would you play next game if Mido scores a hattrick today?

[jrio]

Bearing in mind Midos success against Campbell , id say the comments were justified as they were only his views in light of the successes hes had v Campbell.

Think MJ needs to sort himself and his comments out too before he goes criticising his players too much ;)

What success against Campbell? I can't recall any reports of these games noting that Mido took Campbell to the cleaners. Campbell looked very poor against us last season but that wasn't a footballing issue.

Mido's comments are particularly reckless in light of Campbell's recent history with Spurs, our lack of goals and Pompey's defensive record. Anyone coming out with comments like this looks to be heading for a pratfall.

How does MJ need to sort himself out? What should he do exactly? His criticism was correct and pertinent and I'd go as far to say he would also be justified in dropping Mido from the squad. These were exactly the kind of antics that caused concern when Mido was at the ANC, acting without thought for the team.

And if he plays and scores a hat-trick today I'm a dutchman.

[neilmcnab]

4 real mido hasnt even had a shot all season much less scored a goal or come close.. he shud make his football do the talking...welll see in a few hrs who s got somthing to say.... coys...coys...

[jrio]

Well, he's on the bench along with Keane, Huddlestone and Davenport, showing that MJ doesn't bear a grudge.

Side looks very intriguing. King back, Berbatov and Defoe in attack, midfield of Zokora, Murphy with Jenas and Ghaly wide, presumably in diamond formation.

I am assuming that Murphy isn't on the left and Ghaly on the right. Although Murphy has moved left he's never started there. Still, neither had Ghaly.

[Billywhizz]

It's another game where we need to get @ them early, starting with a high tempo, again if we fail to do this we will make hard for ourselves and i can't see knowmore than a dour draw.

As for Mido's comments they were'nt very tactfull but it was against ****** so i'll forgive him for that.

See Murphy is starting, can't understand why BMJ don't give Hudd the anchor man role and play Zokora more forward, if he done this i think teams would find it very hard to keep up with Zokora's powerpact performances, He would be more influential.

Still hopefully a 2-0 win for us.

[nuttyhotspurs]

****in get in!!!!!!

[Keanoldinho]

we Love You Danny We Do!!!!!!!

[Keanoldinho]

Murphy is looking class on the left midfield

[nuttyhotspurs]

diving git!!!! everyone else does it so why cant me eh?????

[JJ]

Yeah not very happy with the blatant dive, but i guess its gonna happen eventually.

[nuttyhotspurs]

thought it was too good to be true. poor defending by ekotto, shouldnt of let him cross so easy. then poor positioning by king and dawson. a shame really because we looked solid in defence up until then.

murphy has had a good half as had zakora. jenas and ghaly aint done much on the right hand side and ghalys crossing has been poor today for some reason.

berby and defoe looking good up top tho making some good runs and berby holds the ball up great.

overall a good first half and we've scored 2!! i dont care how they come about either we will take a goal in any way shape or form at the minute!!!!

[MarlowSpurs]

What a shit second half and someone give old Jenas some shooting practice for ****s sake.
We won though thats the main thing.Some promising performances aswell

[coys]

My ****ing heart few dodgy moments does anyone know if daws is ok

[MarlowSpurs]

My ****ing heart few dodgy moments does anyone know if daws is ok

I will let you konw once me wife has managed to restart my heart and get me stable:D

[choda]

I'd just like to say...

[fluke]

What is it with Spurs.? World class for spells and pub team lookalikes at moments too. Why can we not kill off games? Why did Zakora run to the corner flag to kill off time with 2 minutes left on the clock knowing there has to be a shitload of injury time to go. He had the chance to break.

I know this will get me some flack, but did anyone else think Keane gave the ball away too easily and too often.

Happy with the three points but not convinced by the performance.

[neilmcnab]

so many chances to kill the game... jenas...what was he doin...thats poor for a midfielder...and a england int... i posted previously that last week against liverpool will not be the only sitter he misses this season... and sure enuff...his game is lackin an end product.....

[fluke]

Oh, forgot to bitch about our set pieces. WTF is going on in training. Some of those were so wastefull it was scary. have we scored from a set piece yet?

[Billywhizz]

At ****in last, 3 points on the board.

Thought Hudds done allright when he came on, we started to play thru them a little bit more, better than hoofing the ball up to the forwards. was never a penalty but think we're due some luck.

Pedro ran the show, why the **** did we let him go.

Found it amusing the constant barricking of Elton Campbell, though he had a steady game, but we allways get to him when he come's back to the lane and you can notice it, he knows he dropped a bollock playing for the scum.

Roll on Villa.

[choda]

I've said this before but Jol is slowly slowly moving towards the correct decisons this year.

He's working on the passing in training and he's slowly creeping towards the correct team selections. Today he had Ghaly and Murphy playing which gives us something a little different in midfield.

It is a much better balance than having loads of physical type players. Seeing it late but at least he's seeing it.

He still ****ed up by leaving us short on wing cover but he's doing okay now. At least Ghaly and Murphy are central mids who can give you something different and a bit of quailty even if they aren't natural wide men.

That game should also give us more confidence.

Moving Ghaly back to right back was an error I think... why didn't he move Jenas back there? Ghaly has quality going forward. Jenas is squandering every single position he gets at the moment. After that we looked like we were having problems again with our balance and quality.

Jenas has to start playing a hell of a lot better or he's finished at the lane when the injured lads come back. He was absolutely shite today again just like he was at the start of the season.

Murphy was super today, he was good generally, he put his foot in and he was clever in his play. Up to this he was only good around the box and useless apart from that, but I think it was match fitness and just getting going at the club (which he has now done).

I'm not happy Defoe started the match, I think Keane is a very important player to us. He is lively and can change a game for us. He must start, get a run and get his confidence up. He looked much more like his old self after he scored the last night. And then he's benched when he got a bit of momentum going to get properly back to himself. He's chopping and changing the strikers far too much, he needs to give Keane a run with Berbatov and they'll develop into a super partnership.

And what a player Zokora is. Unbelievable athlete, talent and attitude. Didn't like the dive but a foot went out from Mendes. He was looking for it too much though and it made him look bad. It wasn't an awul incident but he needs to handle the art of going down better or he'll be just cheating... and we can't have that. But I think Martin will talk to him about this.

[Spur]

Murphy did have a good first half but then just went missing again. Despite having a pole in front of me again I was pleased to see Danny moving today - in the first half at least. For the second I could see him not quite clearly. Apparently though he moved a bit before I even turned up too as I got to the stadium 45 seconds after kickoff...

Even so I was not happy with the performance. Not happy about what i'm sure was a Pompey fan sitting next to me either. That second half performance... Absolutely shocking. Terrible even. Terribly shocking. Even when Huddlestone came on too...Just lumping it up and it coming straight back.

Ghaly going back to right back hurt us. It meant Jenas had to do something - which he didn't - out on the right. I mean they even brought on a different left back better at going forward - Harry must have been confident.

Still, Ghaly showed some bright sparks but his final ball was a bit erratic. Still created more than JJ though. And JJ's finishing...something else. Quickly becoming the most laughed and joked about player in the world is our JJ. Caught ball watching too many times as well. Although I do like those little 'slide flicks' that him and Murphy do (even if they do look a bit tarty).

Didier - easily our best player again. Haven't seen the dive but quickly got about a million text messages accusing my team of cheating - I DONT LIKE IT. It reminds me too much of the Scum and do not want it on my turf (of which there was a brown patch today as well...).

Berba looked ok. Not great of which I will put down to match practice. Defoe did little. A few runs here and there.

Absolutely shitting it about Chimbo and Daws though. Quite possibly our two most in-form players going off...Dawson being carried off...not good.

The only thing you can say about the goal is that the cross shouldn't have come in and it should have been dealt with anyway.

[singapore spur]

well 3 points is 3 points , we needed this so bad and getting a win was never going to be pretty but gives us something to build on . good first half all in all but a nervous second . saying that jenas had a couple of great oppertunities to wrap it up .
the penalty was pretty disgraceful and i dont thnk any of us like to see that but on this occasion , in the situation we are in , maybe ub=nderstandable and forgiveable .
hopefully we can build on this though a dawson , and chimba injury could be costly if they ae out for a prolonged time , though a head injury shoudnt keep dawson out .

[suBerb]

We didn't play very well but I'm happy with the three points. Our team needs points to calm down and show its best. Zokora is a superb player. Berb needs match practice. With Lennon and Malbranque we'll play definately better. I hope that Daws and Chimbo will be ok and we will not lose vs Villa.