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· Spurs fans! Find a hotel near the ground here!
· Last Year's Game - Portsmouth 1 Spurs 0
· Last Year's Spursometer - 58%
· This week - last year
· The "new" Spurs impressed in a 1-1 draw at home to Liverpool, whilst Portsmouth drew 1-1 against Birmingham
Full Record of Spurs -v- Portsmouth
Prem Pl W D L For-Ag Pts
Home 2 2 0 0 7 - 4 6
Away 2 0 0 2 0 - 3 0
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Total (Prem) 4 2 0 2 7 - 7 6
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Football Lge
Home (Div 1) 13 4 6 3 27 -22 14
Away (Div 1) 13 3 5 5 14 -22 11
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Total(Div 1) 26 7 11 8 41 -44 25
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Total (Prem) 4 2 0 2 7 - 7 6
Total(Div 1) 26 7 11 8 41 -44 25
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Grand Total 30 9 11 10 47 -51 31
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Last Six Premiership results:-
Portsmouth
B'mingham 0-0 P'tsmouth
P'tsmouth 1-2 Liverpool
P'tsmouth 4-1 S'hampton
Man City 2-0 P'tsmouth
P'tsmouth 1-1 Bolton
West Brom 2-0 P'tsmouth
Spurs
Liverpool 2-2 Spurs
Spurs 1-1 West Brom
Arsenal 1-0 Spurs
Spurs 5-1 A. Villa
M'brough 1-0 Spurs
Spurs 0-0 Blackburn
2004-5 Final Table
Pos P W D L F -A GD Pts
9 Spurs 38 14 10 14 47-41 6 52
16 P'tsmouth 38 10 9 19 43-59 -16 39
At last! it's back! Premiership Football will once again dominate our lives for a glorious ten months. Last year Spurs were optimistic after the signing of 20 odd players. This year we're ectstatic after just 6 signings, featuring a world class star - Edgar Davids, sadly out through injury this Saturday. I can't wait!
It is 46 years since Portsmouth last played their football in a division higher than their main rivals, Southampton. That rivalry is amongst the hottest of Derby Rivalries in the country - exacerbated of course last year when Harry Redknapp packed in working for Pompey Chairman Milan Mandaric, and popped up at Southampton three weeks later. There will be much gloating about the demise of The Saints this year!
Since their return to the top flight, Pompey have a good record against us, winning both the home games, and keeping clean sheets. Fratton Park is one of the most intensive home crowds, and a real twelfth man for the team. In 2003-4, we lost 2-0 on a miserable wet Boxing Day adventure, that I would rather forget, and last year Yakubu scored the solitary goal that dented Spurs early season form, as we dropped from fifth to ninth, losing the first away game of the campaign. Jacques Santini was still our coach then, and his reign was not to last much longer as he disappeared after a defeat at Fulham later that month.
Santini gave Michael Carrick his Spurs debut at Portsmouth, and now he's a regular for Martin Jol. "Regular" is a title that will be claimed by few in the Spurs squad this season, but Paul Robinson, Ledley King, Edgar Davids and Carrick will be amongst them.
Portsmouth have won only three League games this year - all of them at home (one against Saints by 4-1), and new coach Alain Perrin has been busy in the close season re-shaping "his" side. Out have gone Yakubu (to Middlesbrough), Berger (to Villa), Fuller and Steve Stone, and incomers include Newcastle's Andy O'Brien, Lauren Robert (on loan), Sander Westerveld (formerly Liverpool Keeper), Gregory Vignal, and Kaiser Chiefs Collins Mbesuma. I wonder if Mbesuma will settle better than our former player Mabizela, who we signed from Orlando Pirates after an impressive pre-season friendly in 2003?
Portsmouth lost 11 of the 18 2005 Premiership games, and their fans will flippantly say that they gloriously lost 2-0 on the last day at The Hawthorns to help send Saints down, but inwardly those same fans cannot fell too confident about survival this term.
The bookies are not rating Pompey's chances of survival too highly, but there will be enough clubs struggling to allow the chimes to be ringing at Premiership games for another year, I'm sure. As for Spurs, the bookies (who don't usually get such matters far wrong) rate Spurs fifth best in the League. That'll do for starters, and I fancy Spurs to get off to a good start with a 2-0 win, despite the late withdrawal of skipper Ledley King, and now Edgar Davids, with a knee injury.
· Saturday's First Eleven? (Further Preview)
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