It has been a while but pompeycarpet returns with some musings of his own on ‘what we learned last week,’ which seems to be a regular thing now?
Yet another busy week at Portsmouth, but – sadly – yet another week without our dose of premier league action. Still, those of you like me that were suffering withdrawal symptoms could watch some decent action from the best league in the world, Chelsea-Sunderland (our next opponents) was my pick (unsurprisingly given the score line) and we have also had the “excitement” of being able to watch our African players show off there skills in Angola. Oh, and Pompey beat Coventry in the FA cup. But what were the most significant events to happen last week?
Here’s my pick:
1) Lucky Lucky Avram. That’s right. Lucky Avram. It’s been years – well, one year, eight months to be exact – since we last experienced anything like this (not including Kaboul’s stunning winner against Sunderland). Both Tony Adams and Paul Hart were cursed with bad luck, late goals blighting there time as manager as we lurched from one miserable defeat after another. And now? One change of manager, and we are the ones scoring goals against the run of play in the last minute of added time. Or, in the case of this week, the opposition scoring a ridiculous own goals in the final minute of the game, taking the game to extra time, where we won it in the last minute of added time, in the last minute of extra time.
If that’s not luck, I don’t know what is.
2) Al Faraj – God of weather? Last week, I said no-one knew who Al Faraj was. This week, I think I’ve sussed it. A quick check of the weather forecast for last week seemed to confirm it, as our plans to avoid any football we could possibly avoid took yet another step to completion. And no, I don’t include the game against Coventry – the players needed the exercise and practice, as they themselves proved, taking 60 minutes to even start to look like a proper team.
To those of you who haven’t checked the forecast, it’s heavy snow on Wednesday, followed by heavy rain. Still, that’s “only” an FA cup game, and I think we successfully avoided having to play one of the most in-form sides this weekend, without some of our best players.
Hopefully by the time we next have to face premier league opposition (west ham on the 26th), Algeria will have lost to Angola (putting them out, and allowing Yebda and Belhadj to return), the transfer ban will have been lifted, and we’ll be looking forward to the great escape MK.II.
3) No Communication. Over the past few weeks – months even – Pompey fans across the country have been asking for one thing: communication. The situation had got so bad last week, that a protest was organised. And communication has improved. In some ways.
We have certainly heard more from Mark Jacob, Peter Storrie and Ahmed Al Faraj (presumably a modern day version of Hermes – the messenger God). It’s been a massive step up, whether it’s been instigated by the protest, or provoked by Sacha’s interview, in which he made it out to be not his fault is questionable, however the increased levels of communication coming out of the club is undoubtedly a very good thing, and step in the right direction.
It’s just such a shame though, that levels of communication within the club haven’t improved. David James almost moved to stoke. Did Avram Grant know anything about it? Not at all. Is that the first time that’s happened? Not even close.
So, that’s my take on the last week, but what’s yours? Do you agree with me? If not, what have YOU learnt this week?
Written by pompeycarpet.
The views within this article are the views of the individual who wrote and submitted this piece, sometimes solely theirs. They are not necessarily shared by the Vital Pompey Site Journalists.
