POMPEY GET THE CHANCE TO BREAK YET ANOTHER DUCK
1957 Another date from the fifties in our recent run where teams can look back to their last win over certain sides. This time 57 was the last time Pompey beat Everton at Fratton Park, yet another pointer of how dire Pompey have had it since the fifties when we were last a major force.
Everton have an injury crisis in midfield to rival our own up-front, Tim Cahill is out for a while yet, Arteta damaged his foot warming up last week, and one time Pompey target Leon Osman is out with a Hamstring. Up front James Beattie looks a likely starter with Andy Johnson, he should be the winner of this weeks most abused award, and Andy Johnson will be welcome to have a quiet match in front of goal, he can always play right-wing a`la England if he desires. Tony Hibbert is another absentee for Everton at right-back, and with the current crisis at Goodison, Moyes may be forced to scrap his favoured 4-5-1 formation in place of a more open 4-4-2.
Pompey can welcome Sean Davis back in place of the banned Pedro Mendes, Fernandes will be looking to build on last weeks improvement against Villa and make Harry Redknapp offer him a permanent deal, and Matt Taylor won`t let his back problem keep him out of the side after last weeks double goal salvo.
The return of Davis gives him the chance to re-new his duel with O`Neil in the battle of the super-heroes, Davis looks like more like Wolverine every day and O`Neil is looking like, er, Peter Parker? Time for one of our midfielders to break his seasons goal scoring duck.
Pompey and Everton have two of the countries top scorers in Johnson and Kanu, Johnson would expect to be in the leader board, but Kanu has confounded the critics to lead the way with eight, Nine or ten sounds a lot better to me though!
Everton quite enjoy playing Pompey, the points generally head north after most encounters, but this is a different Pompey this term and form would point to a home win, Sky have done their bit by not tipping Pompey, so it`s up to the lads to prove them wrong again!
Play up Pompey
Paul
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