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Pompey crushed in season opener

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Published Date: 16 August 2008

Pompey kicked off the new season with a miserable defensive display as they crashed to a 4-0 reverse at Chelsea.

Harry Redknapp's men turned in one of their worst displays in recent memory as they capitulated in a first half that they will be keen to forget very quickly.

David James' clean sheet evaporated inside 12 minutes as Joe Cole skipped on to Michael Ballack's astute throughball to angle a drive inside far post.

And more shoddy defending presented an easy chance to Nicolas Anelka just past the midway point in the half as he nodded home from close range.

Pompey's fortunes did not improve either as a harsh penalty was awarded against Sylvain Distin on the stroke of half-time for handball. Frank Lampard dispatched the spot-kick with ease.

Although Chelsea looked happy with what they had, they added a fourth before the final whistle to put Pompey in their place.

New Portuguese midfielder Deco completed the rout in the dying moments of the game as his swerving drive beat James to seal a comfortable success for last season's beaten Champions League finalists.

The full article contains 191 words and appears in The News newspaper.

Page 1 of 1

Last Updated: 18 August 2008 7:00 AM
Source: The News
Location: Portsmouth

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Ben,

18/08/2008 07:17:36

No excuses for that result ! complete pants. If we have many displays like that I can see it being a very long season, like many long standing Pompey fans have had the displeasure to experience over the last 20 years. We have got some fantastic players in the squad now, but they just were not at the races on Sunday, looked like Pedro was missed going by the performance of our midfield, or lack of midfield.Changes need to be made, more players need to be brought in asap and some current players need to realise that they are paid to play football which involves running, tackling etc etc or they shouldnt get paid. Chelsea are a great team, but they were made to look 100 times better by us. More guts, more glory displays please.

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Gingerpfc,

18/08/2008 08:22:02

I have to admit after watching the games yesterday Harry has missed a trick, Jonas Guttierez (spiderman) look a good WIDE player. he had bundles of energy passed well got up and down the pitch and helped out defensively. considering we apparently got offered £12M for Niko????

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wembley,

18/08/2008 08:27:16

well how well did chelsea play! or pants did pompey play? pompey could had or played much better! defoe and dirra (while he was on) were pompeys best two playerwe need more players that will take it up the wing and put a good ball in! oh well only firts game of the seasion lets look fowrward to our next oh its man u we can bet than if the players trie!

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BazOreilly,

18/08/2008 08:59:49

We have no midfield, that is our problem, noone can feed the ball into defoe and crouch, i think with the amount of uefa games this year, we will finish in the bottom half of the table..
Campbell, looks old, slow and not fit for league 1!..
Kaboul is useless!, Would rather have Skopilitis!!
Diop Cannot play out wide, FACT!!!
Jerome Thomas, Hes at charlton for a reason, Surley (in my posts a few weeks ago,) I would rather have wayne Routledge!!

Overall I think the way Pompey Played yesterday was enbarressing, and for the fans that went up there deserve to get a free away game or something...!!

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Bangkok Pompey,

18/08/2008 09:03:32

surprised that no one has mentioned how bad that actual tackle from Deco was, it was high, studs showing, and he didn't even get a ticking off. Another things what is with the Singaporean linesman. I bet he will be running the line at all games for Chelsea, Liverpool, Man Utd and Arsenal. He had a shocker, missed two blatant offside decisions, and the penalty decision(which was wrong). Still absolutely nothing to take away from this game at all, I am thinking I would rather have Benjani and Defoe than play the long ball game to Crouch. And time to sell Krunchie, severely lacking in the last two games

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Gready,

Mickleham 18/08/2008 10:44:13

Come on, it's not the end of the world, we have plenty of midfield players at the club, Kaboul though looks like he might need a bit of time to learn the job if that's what he is going to be asked to do.
We still have a better squad than most.
We were beaten by a good Chelsea side at Stamford Bridge so the result is not a surprise. We know we have a good defence, they just had a bad day at the office. Hopefully the players have just had a reality check and will knuckle down against United, if we get anything out of that game it will be a bonus.
But all this expectation on the back of last season is not realistic. The teams we should worry about losing to are the ones who are expected to finish below us and around us, not the Champions League finalists.

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bluedazza,

18/08/2008 13:11:15

Though we had a poor game and a lot of our players didn't step up to the mark I think it harsh Baz to have a go at Jerome Thomas. I thought we attacked more down the left side when he came on for 20 minutes than we did with Krancjar for 70 minutes and he came back to help defend!! Give the lad a chance he had 2 days practice with the team. The people who should stand up and be counted are Campbell, Krancjar and Diop. You could even say the whole back 4 need a lesson in communication cos they just didn't talk to each other yesterday and that lead to Jammo trying to claim crosses he had no need to be going for and thus ending out of position. We have now got wingers (Little/Thomas/Utaka) in the squad it's time to use them and not put central midfielders out on the wings. PUP

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Old Pompey Blue,

18/08/2008 15:11:29

Ginger, I believe that the spiderman was on Harry's wanted list. Story at the time was that there was a question over his ownership and that the transfer would not be straight forward. Bearing in mind the authorities liking of checking out everything about our transfers, maybe it was decided to let this one go.

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