Transfer Speculation
Italian Giants Juventus have reportedly tried to offload a few of their players onto us. These three being Fabrizio Miccoli, Marcelo Zalayeta and Robert Kovac. I'd definitely take Miccoli, who we were after last season and he's still currently with Benfica. He's a quality goalscorer but I'm not so sure about Zalayeta. He has pedigree but I haven't been overly impressed when I've seen him, but you never know with Redknapp in charge. Look what he's done with Kanu for instance.
Kovac is a decent defender but 32-years-old now and surely we should be aiming our sights at younger defenders as our first choice defence next season is going to contain players the wrong side of 30. Signing someone like Younes Kaboul of Auxerre would have been handy, but then he rejected us last summer after a bid of £6 million was rejected.
We do need a slightly younger look at the back and even someone with although someone with as much potential as Curtis Davies would cost a bomb; you have to pay the going rate for these long term investments. Sulley Muntari has also been linked again, this time at £6 million which would still be a bit overpriced, but we're lacking creativity and if we've got all this money to spend in the summer then why not splash it a bit?
We're also supposedly after some Kenyan named McDonald Mariga. Nope I don't know who he is either!
Our Recent Form
It's been a bit baffling how our form has dipped since Boxing Day but Linvoy Primus believes that getting back to basics is what has improved the team recently. I'd agree with that seeing as at the start of the season all we did was get the basics spot on and as a reward we climbed to the top of the table and kept 5 consecutive clean sheets whilst scoring simple goals. It's a winning formula and when you try to over-complicate it too much you end up progressing backwards. If you get the basics right then you have a good chance of winning any football match, Chelsea are the masters of doing it and look where it has got them.
En-Ger-Land and Booing
Like many others, I wasn't too impressed with England's performance against Andorra last night but once again, I didn't really care too much and just wished that the Fulham game would hurry up so I can be passionate about football once again. I just hate games where you're expected to hammer the opposition and if there's one reason why I wouldn't want Pompey to become a great team it's because I'd personally get bored of being favourites for nearly every game we play.
We've already seen how a half-decent season has raised the expectation levels significantly and with that comes a higher number of fickle fans and I just don't want to imagine Pompey being booed off the pitch because they've failed to beat a mid-table side at home. I much prefer it when we're the underdogs seen as punching above our own weight as we continue to cause a few upset results against the biggest clubs in England.
Speaking of booing the England fans did a pretty good job of showing just how fickle they can be. Sure, they've paid a lot of money to travel to the Nou Camp and yes, we were pretty bad in the first half but then there's two halves to a match and it's not as if Andorra showed any ambition at all is it? I agree with Harry Redknapp when he says booing your own team can't help during a game and most of the time only makes them play worse.
I'm quite proud of the fact that our own fans have been through some bad times yet don't boo their own team (despite a small majority). That sort of thing should be saved for the likes of Newcastle and West Ham.
Europe
I still think we're in with a shot, although we're really going to have to win the bulk of our away games, starting with Fulham on Saturday which could go either way. We've shown signs of improvement but it could be a case of too little, too late with the majority of the damage being done in January and early February.
A top 10 finish would still be a great achievement and would mark a considerable amount of progress for the club after three consecutive years of worrying about relegation. A relatively stress free season is always welcome but it would be great if we could finish the campaign strongly.
Though the trip to Craven Cottage might just put us out of our misery...