Perspective

Last updated : 17 October 2006 By Jim Bonner
Recently the press have been bantering on about how we're aiming for Europe, consolidating our place in the Champions League places and keeping up with Chelsea and Manchester United. They do forget to mention we're only eight games into the season however!

I suppose you can't blame them for getting excited. We have 16 points. That's more than Sunderland got all of last season and if we get another point or more we would have equalled the amount of points we had at the end of 2005. Since that infamous Pedro Mendes winner, we have taken an average of two points every week, and if we're continuing that form we'll have 76 points at the end of the season!

But aren't we jumping the gun a bit?

The way I see it, we haven't played anyone majorly difficult yet. Only two of our opponents we have played currently reside in the top half of the table. We have a nasty run of away games coming up which could easily see us slide down the table. I'm not saying we shouldn't go into those games confident because the way we have been playing there's no reason why we can't go to the likes of Stamford Bridge and Old Trafford thinking we can take something. But for the media, and even some of our players to talk of Europe or even the Champions League after 8 games just tells me that we could easily be setting ourselves up for a fall.

Even with our good start, Premiership survival should not be taken for granted. Harry Redknapp agrees and says that we shouldn't even be thinking about Europe until we hit 40 points. Just 24 more to go then....

But for the optimists out there, if we are aiming for Europe then the general conditions seem to be that if you win half of your games then you have a great chance of making the top six so long as you don't lose the other half. We already have five victories under our belts and I'm sure looking at our fixture list we have at least 14 winnable games left to play.

Redknapp has said we should be aiming for our best Premiership finish given our start so that would be 12th or higher. I think we're capable of that. If we're aiming for our personal best points tally in the Premiership then we'd need 46 points or more. So another ten wins (or thirty draws) and we'd have officially had our best Premiership season ever.

So survival should be the initial aim. If (though it should be when) we hit the magical 40 points barrier, then we can think about breaking into the top 10 and possibly the UEFA Cup places. I'm not saying we're not capable of achieving that I'm just saying that after 8 games of the season, none against the so-called "top" sides that we're not able to get a true reflection of what Pompey can really do in the Premiership this season.

If we're in a similar position after our trip to Arsenal however, then even I will believe we'll be destined for great things in 2007.