Saints At Pompey The Preview
Saturday, 17th Dec 2011 10:22

Almost there for the first meeting of the clubs in the league for nearly seven years.

Saints fans will be cheered to read that the manager and team are talking in the press about knowing just how special this game is to the supporters of both clubs, certainly that wasnt the case for the Saints team of April 2005 who went down without any passion or fight in the fixture at a time when a win would have saved us from the drop.

For Saints fans the first question will be who is fit and who is not, it will be a boost if Kelvin is fit to play, but if he isnt then wwe should remember that most games Bart Bialkowski has played for this club have been good ones and that being the case, help him to regain his confidence, other injury worries could include Jose Fonte, although Arron Martin is champing at the bit to play usually and would undoubtably be fired up to play in this one.

But a big boost could be the return of Richard Chaplow, he has been pictured back in full training this week and a return to the midfield could restore the balance that has been somewhat lacking in the time he has been out, apart from these possible changes though I would not expect Nigel Adkins to deviate too much from his usual starting side with the key being who is on the bench.

Although it will be hard to go to Fratton for their first game approaching anything like a full house in a long time, we have to remember that the days of fortress Fratton and their self proclaimed"Best fans in the World" days are long past, their last two seasons in the premier saw their average crowds well below capacity, the final year seeing over 3,000 seats empty per game on average, a lot more on most occasions and last term an average of 15,707, this term the Pompey fans have abandoned their team, the average has been only 13,534 and barely eleven thousand turned up for one game, even this full house will only hover them around their stated break even figure of 14,000 over a season.

So far from 20,000 passionate fans, half the home support will be day trippers returning for just this one game and as we know when this happens these supporters are often quick to turn on their team and put more pressure on them if things go wrong.

So ideally Saints would settle in a rythym quickly and subdue the home team and in term the home crowd, this wont be easy, not just for the derby day factor, but our general defending away from home, but all we need is our defence to keep concentration and not allow the lapses they have done, if we do that we can impose ourselves on the game and start to take a grip, in general we have usually been better in the second half than the first in many games, this is no coincidence, we have the quality coming off the bench to be able to keep up the pressure without a loss in quality and this could well be the key.

What we have to concentrate on is that we are the better team, the league positions do not lie, that being the case we have to prove that and not allow Pompey a ray of light. Their game relies on keeping it tight at the back and then trying to sneak a goal and this could be their undoing, the crowd will pressure them to keep going forward and this could open them out to our attacking players, they could get caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, do they stick to their normal gameplan or pander to the supporters wishes, our job is to get a goal and mess up their plans, if we score first then at some stage they have to come out at us and try to salvage the game, late on this has been the undoing of many sides this season.

But they are much improved of late Michael Appleton is a manager in the Nigel Pearson mould and he has got Pompey fitter and playing a system not to mention building a team spirit that wasnt there under Steve Cotterill, however for all of that the fact remains that Appleton is working with limited resources player wise and although Plan A is adequate, through no fault of his own he cant have too much of a Plan B and you can forget all about Plan C, he hasnt got the squad for that.

So the time for talking and posturing is over, in some respects we have nothing to lose, POmpey fans have revelled in being the better team for the last 7 years, they have humiliated us in the last two games, we have taken the worst of their taunts, now is the time to show the tables have turned on the pitch, if we do that the Fratton crowd will not be able to accept that from their team and it could all get a bit messy, a big test for Nigel Adkins, he has the chance to show, he has not only assembled a decent squad, but that he has built team spirit and he is tactically astute, he does that at Fratton Park and the good news is we will be top of the table for Xmas and in a strong position to head into the new year.

On Sunday at Fratton there is no time for negativity eitheron or off the pitch in the Saints camp, lets be as we where in the 1984 cup game, all solidly as one and focused on the important things and that is winning the game, nothing else nothing more.

Photo: Action Images

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