WHO-****in-HA!

[Cliffjumper]

Phew, thank **** for that, thought we were going to get sucked in after those clonkings from Arsenal (see, you can win without paying off the referee) and Liverpool, we ****ing bounced back. Against Chelski. Not many others can say that.

I don't think I've ever been quite so gripped by online text commentary before.

That should should should see us just about safe... Pompey may have picked up, but Brom and Brum certainly haven't. it's just a pain as without that slump over the past few games we could have been around the top 10, and yet again we've had another go-nowhere season, and will have the vultures hanging around all summer again. Abramovic [sp?] will probably buy the first 11 out of spite or something.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

[Getaway]

Belated congratulations on the result, hope we can do the same in the FA semi's. The thing I don't understand about Fulham is that you have a fantastically wealthy chairman who gives you feck all money, whats the point in him owning a football club if he does nothing with it. With a little bit more cash Coleman could easily turn that team into one at least challenging for a Uefa cup spot.

[liverpoolicus]

Originally posted by Cliffjumper
Abramovic [sp?] will probably buy the first 11 out of spite or something.

[/B]

Dont be silly .....most people couldnt name the first 11 nevermind buy them;)

[Sixshot]

If Pompey can beat Fulham, and Fulham can beat Chelsea, does this mean Pompey can beat Arsenal? They're hardly the ideal game in hand, I look at it more as a (further) goal difference pounding.

I really have no idea who will be going down. I tell myself that it's Portsmouth to try and lesson the blow, but secretly I like to think we might just escape. I would certainly say it's 3 of 4, but seeing as Villa still have Brum and Brom to play, I guess there's a teeny tiny outside chance they could be pulled into it too.

Can't wait until Saturday, I wish there was a way you could speed through to the end of the season just to see what happens. I'm a bag of nerves, and I've damaged my eyes with the amount of time I've spent playing around with league predictors. I currently have Portsmouth to stay up on 37 points, with Brum and the Baggies both on 36.

Don't suppose any of you guys feel like filling this out and posting your bottom 3?:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/footbal ... efault.stm

It would be cool to get a neutral view. So Brend, your views will be ignored. No change there, then. Ho ho.

[Cliffjumper]

My bet? Very close between Brum and Pompey... WBA don't seem to have much motivation, whereas Pompey have found some form and Brum have turned a bit of a corner - both have decent squads that just needed a bit of gel and a break.

I think it's going to be close, as, off the top of my head, most of the three teams' remaing fixtures are against teams who still have something to play for.

I'd say Brum have the best squad, and in potential the best team, but they've had so many injuries they've got no consistancy - plus the likes of Forsell, Izzet and Dunn are so injury prone they'll come back, last 45 minutes and have another month off.

Pompey have got more players with, erm, an X-factor - players like That There Argentinian, Lua Lua and Mendes, who'll just suddenly do something mental and give the team a lift.

WBA haven't really got any of those things... they've got four basically good strikers, but none of them ever seem to have a good game, and that each one hardly ever gets 90 minutes can't help. Their defence is a shambles - only Curtis Davies is that good, and he's too young. Their only real advantage is they've been here before, and they were expecting to be here again... Brum are still smarting from being nowhere near the UEFA cup, while Pompey would have wanted, at worst, to be in the Fulham "season over" position.

Talking of which... without wanting to sound too sour grapes, I think the way a couple of things fell for Pompey against us bodes well. You make your own luck an' all that Partly by not having a 95-year old Welsh goalkeeper

It's going to be very close... This weekend's going to be a real crunch one I reckon, with both Pompey and Brum on good form.

My prediction:
17 Pompey
18 Birmingham - a point or two behind
19 WBA - down before the last day, but not by a huge amount - 4 points?
47 Sunderland - relegated directly to League 1

[Halfshell]

Originally posted by Sixshot
It would be cool to get a neutral view. So Brend, your views will be ignored. No change there, then. Ho ho.

Nyuck nyuck, blondie.

Filled out the BBC online predictor thingy earlier in the week. Sadly it resulted in P*mpey staying up.

I take solace in the fact that my predictions are frequently wrong.

[Jetfire]

Originally posted by Sixshot
If Pompey can beat Fulham, and Fulham can beat Chelsea, does this mean Pompey can beat Arsenal? They're hardly the ideal game in hand, I look at it more as a (further) goal difference pounding.

A draw. Not ideal for either club. I think Diaby is looks like he will be a solid buy, Adebeyor is a worry as he blows far to many chances and Wallcott won't be a frst teamer for a long while.

I'm really perplexed by Arsenal. Normally we have good periods or brief bad periods. This whole we can destory europes best, but struggle against most of the premier league is mental. We were unlucky against Pompey, but 10 loses this season is dire and a LOT of those are teams who shouldn't be to much of a problem.

The big worry is that Wenger hasn't brought another striker who can score 20 goals since Henry. With Pires and Ljungberg (who both go 15+ last season) mostly having poor seasons and age quickly catching up, it's finally showing. Even though we are in transistion we are still having a poor season for the players we haveand I'm hugely worried about having no champions legue next season.

I mean, 4th place is not in our hands at all, an away goal ruling against Villreal is enough to end the season and lose Henry and going against Barca or Milan in the final will be the the most nervous time in my life since I did my GCSEs. Milan IMO are a better team than Juventus and have the best defence in europe while Barca are the team of the moment in terms of overall quality.

[Jetfire]

On the note of relegation battles, I honesty think Pompay will survive and they are the ones I want to survive. I don't like WBA, Sunderland didn't even try and brum deserve what they get for being so eager to buy freshly sentenced criminals and Heskey.

Pompey are by far in the best form and Harry is a superb manager even if it took a little time to get the new players going this season. Plus they have te bets fans to spur them on.

[inflatable dalek]

WBA must go down so we can heartily mock the fan at work for several years- That's the important thing.

[Cliffjumper]

I'm pretty sure Pompey are safe now... they've done the hard work, and have the better run-in (okay, so there aren't many guaranteed points, but WBA and Brum have the harder run-ins).

I'm not really sure who I want to survive. I suppose I want Pompey to fail less than the other two - WBA only survived through a fluke result last year (namely us thumping Norwich last year on the last day... Norwich had the better players, and more importantly from my PoV, played the third-best football in the division that season), and Brum, well, like Jets I think Bruce is asking for it by soending so much on so-so, unreliable players (who'll all jump ship come June). My biggest problem with Pompey staying up is that it'll basically canonise Redknapp... I can't find it now, but there was a great article on the Guardian site basically putting all the spin he's been given (and given himself) into a proper context. The team weren't doing that woefully under Perrin, and only dropped into big trouble when Redknapp took back over and decided the best way to motivate his team was to publicly mock them (I have no respect for any manager who does this, warranted or not). Then he gets given a sizeable amount of money, and starts picking up points - as the article pointed out, that money would have made most smaller Premier teams much better - it would have been enough to push us to UEFA contenders, or get West Brom out of trouble. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that, but claiming the guy's a miracle-worker because he spends £10m or whatever on £10m's worth of talent is a bit rich...

But of the three, Pompey have a nice set of class players, and the likes of Taylor and Lua-Lua don't seem like mercenary twats (can you see Mikael Forsell and Kanu, both of whom would be god-knows where but for the faith of Bruce and Robson, sticking around for the Championship), so yeh. Especially if it means Harry ****s off to write a column for The Sun or something.

[Osku]

As usual I couldn't care less of who wins the league, but relegation is interesting.

Originally posted by Cliffjumper
the likes of Taylor and Lua-Lua don't seem like mercenary twats (can you see Mikael Forsell and Kanu, both of whom would be god-knows where but for the faith of Bruce and Robson, sticking around for the Championship)

From the Finnish point of view I really hope Forssell won't play in Championship. Considering Championship playing style and his injury history it wouldn't promise a healthy season.

[Halfshell]

Originally posted by Jetfire 2.1
Harry is a superb manager

Bollocks.

Harry came into a team who were 16th and steered them to... oh, 17th.

The first thing he did was complain about the squad he'd inherited. Not just a motivational masterstroke but a huge case of blame-shifting (if they go down, it's because of the damage Perrin did, if they stay up it's because he's a miracle worker).

It's exactly the same as what he did to Saints. He came into a club who were only a couple of points below the safety position and basically said we were dead and buried, and that survival would be a miracle. Then spent the rest of the season saying how crap the players are. Yeah, great management. Superb.

Did Perrin have Gaydamak's millions to spend? No. Harry does. Anybody got a direct results comparison between the two managers?

In fact, sod it:
http://football.guardian.co.uk/comment/ ... 67,00.html

[Cliffjumper]

That was the one I couldn't find. A side-by-side with Sturrock and Wigley would also be interesting, especially as, with Portsmouth, Saints spend a good chunk of January and Feb destabilised by the influx of bargain-buy losers.