Payback time
Neville Dalton is a journalist with the BBC News website and a
Computer hits back
It's payback time, then. After four successive home starts to Premiership seasons - and the relatively comfortable run of opening fixtures last season - the computer has got its own back… big time.
The big four all in first six weeks - it could hardly have been worse.
I'm forever taken aback by the eternal optimism of some of the posters on this site who see good and positive in almost everything to do with Pompey.
It's a great outlook to have - as long as you're tough enough to deal with the consequences of disappointment.
It doesn't mean the optimists are wrong. Everyone is different.
But it's a pretty convoluted thought process that triggers cheery e-mails within minutes of discovering your club will have to confront hundreds of millions of pounds of talent - all fresh from a well-earned break - before September is out.
Yes, I can see the logic in the fact that it means we then have a run against the Premier League lesser lights.
But even then, the consequences of reverse fixtures means we must face the crème de la crème again either side of Christmas - when the winter break from European competition means these maestros won't even have the distraction of midweek epics in Milan or Barcelona.
The fact is, Pompey are unlikely ever to enjoy a better start to a season than they did last year, when a phenomenal performance by a James-Linvoy-and-Sol-inspired defence was the bedrock of an excellent unbeaten run, with no team able to breach our back lines until, well, about the same time as we get the big four out of the way this season.
Relegation
OK, we might have strengthened our defence. We might even have improved the forward line by the time the season starts.
But even if we were to have had the same opening fixtures as last season, it would be tough to have repeated that sensational start.
The fact that we have the little matter of Manchester United and
In fact, unless we are able to repeat our admirable performances of last term at
I fear we'll be lucky to get six points from the first half-dozen games. Any more and I think we should be pretty happy.
My fear - and this is where I differ most from our Happy Bunch - is that a poor run of results can play havoc with a team's confidence, meaning that subsequent fixtures that we could reasonably have expected to win suddenly become depressing battles to try to shake off our lethargic form and the losing habit.
Look at last season - some of our results in late summer and early autumn were surely the consequence of the momentum we built up from our wonderful start.
We were winning games that we didn't expect to; picking up points we never had the right to, and suddenly we were being taken seriously as a top-six team with a real chance of getting into
We all know we weren't able to sustain that start, and while we still had enough spirit and nous to finish comfortably in mid-table, we all know that anything other than such a brilliant start to the season would have left us in the more familiar territory of a relegation battle by March.
That's why I'm ever-so-slightly nervous about what's in store this season after the fixtures were announced.
But I tell you what: with Harry at the helm; the likes of James,
And if we're looking for consolations, our improved squad should be more capable of coping with those early challenges and inspiring a recovery if necessary.
And as we unfortunately saw this past season, September positions usually have little bearing on where teams are come April and May.
Positive thinking
Speaking of optimists, I was interested in the recent raft of broadsides from one of this message board's regular contributors urging a sunny outlook and chastising those cynics and sceptics among us.
A fine philosophy, my friend. And I must admit, a constant whining, and negativity can get you down.
But I thought it was a bit much to suggest those who are less than convinced either with the merits or practicability of Pompey's impressively ambitious plans for a new stadium are not true fans.
For one thing, our Mr Sunny should know from his years of following Pompey that long-term support can damage your health.
Watching all but the biggest of clubs is bound to test your patience, but Fratton followers tend to be put through the mill more than most.
But surely, if nothing else, our experiences as Pompey fans should ensure we don't automatically swallow everything we're told, and certainly our sceptics have every right not to take assurances that everything will be all right on the night at face value.
Yes, I think the stadium proposals unveiled a few months ago are amazing.
Yes, it would be fantastic to watch Pompey in a seaside stadium unrivalled almost anywhere on the planet.
But yes, too, there are many questions to be answered and assurances to be fulfilled - about cost, about funding, about winning over opponents to get the thing built.
And not least about guaranteeing that everyone who wants to can get to and from the ground efficiently, comfortably - and preferably on the same day as the match.
The proposed ground's proximity to a railway station is a great advantage.
But anyone who has joined the large crowds exiting stadiums like Old Trafford and The Valley to nip on to the next tram or train will know it's not always that simple.
Waits of up to an hour to get away are not unknown, especially in the evenings, even before taking into account the length of the journeys.
The last time I was there,
And apart from the few thousand who walk from within the city or catch ferries to points south and west, that entire crowd is going to be joining the public-transport queues.
The club and its advisers may well have the solutions to these problems. They may well have the money to fund them, too.
But surely having the independence of mind to ask those questions and not be satisfied until they have received reasoned, well-argued responses is a perfectly reasonable approach.
And doesn't merit doubt being cast on the individuals' devotion to the club.
Fast movers
A big thankyou to Harry Redknapp, Peter Storrie and co for moving swiftly in the transfer market to seal the deals of Sulley Muntari and Sylvain Distin.
If they live up to expectation, both should prove cracking signings for the club.
And what's more, by closing the deals with the minimum of fuss (apparently), within days of the end of the previous season, they've saved
most of us the anxiety of counting the days to the start of the new season without a decent signing to reassure us that something is really going to happen.
And finally…
Speaking of transfers, what is Sam Allardyce on?
How can Manchester City take any blame whatsoever for the fact that they didn't rush to give their erstwhile bad-boy midfielder and perennial thug Joey Barton a £300,000 reward for GBH-ing his way out of the club?
Having indulged his immature and violent nature for so long, surely no one could be surprised that the clash with yet another of his own team-mates was bound to prove the last straw.
The fact that he secured a multi-million-pound transfer (no doubt complete with lucrative signing-on fee and bonuses) to another club that you would have thought would have had enough of disruptive influences by now is indictment enough of how top-level professional football is run in this country.
But to expect some sort of "loyalty" bonus from your long-suffering ex-employers is so brazen that only the Joey Bartons of this world could try it on.
To read that Joey Thug's new manager is himself apoplectic about City's reluctance to reward their former employee's boorish aggression doesn't exactly bode well for the Toon's approach to the game this coming season.