Pretty? No. Fit? No. Tactical genius? Yes. To be fair, i'm not necessarily talking about Avram Grant, I could well be referring to myself. I'll be honest, I could afford to pass on the cake. However, for the purposes of this article, I'll keep the focus mainly on the less than beautiful Israeli that could very well save Pompey from relegation.
I was not happy when Paul Hart was cut loose, But I couldn't help but be a bit excited about Avram Grant taking over at the wheel. A mid-season sack can seriously mess up a team, and we couldn't take much more of that. However when not a complete and utter failure, it has the tendency to be a wild and brilliant success. This is a case of the latter. Let's look at the results since he's taken over:
4-1 loss to United
4-2 loss to Villa (Carling Cup)
2-0 victory over Burnley
1-1 draw with Sunderland
2-1 loss to Chelsea
2-0 victory over Liverpool
Now, in the Sunderland game, we deserved to win. We just couldn't finish it off. United, Villa, and Chelsea were too good for us, and that can be expected. But, I want to look at the Chelsea game, we lost a close game, to a big four team. That, to me is a positive. Sure, you can say that Chelsea is having a poor run of form, but that doesn't take away from the fact that we had every chance to take points away from that match.
Then, there's Liverpool. Yes, Liverpool has been a ghost of their former selves since the departure of Xabi Alonso but they are still Liverpool. Names like Gerrard, Torres, Carragher, and Johnson still strike fear into the hearts of opposing teams, regardless of how poorly they've been playing. And Pompey beat them.
My point here is that while a record of two wins and a draw in six games doesn't look that good on paper it's a whole lot better than 7 losses in 7 that we opened the season with. Avram Grant is the best thing to happen to Portsmouth since the FA cup. Maybe even further back than that.
West Ham at Upton Park on Boxing day will be one heck of a match. My prediction? 3-1 Pompey. Just wait and see.
Comments
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Posted by man utd fan on 12/22/2009
o'hara is gonna help keep you up. as long as he sticks the year out. i think that kid can play a bit. anyway avram is a good manager for portsmouth but the only reason it was close was he knows alittle bit about the players of chelsea. i really expected them to tie with chelsea that day. Liverpool is way down this year, and i look for them to finish 6th and fall out of the big four. portsmouth will stay up in my opinion. burnley, bolton and west ham are going down.
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Posted by Pompey Fan in the USA on 12/23/2009
To be honest, Pompey definitely benefited from Liverpool's poor form as well as their fantastic efforts on the pitch. But how about we recognize the efforts of the defense and Begovic?
Granted, Begovic wasn't challenged much at all against Liverpool, but that save of that Gerrard deflected shot midway through the second half might have been the biggest play of the game. It was 1-0 at the time and an equalizer would have created a HUGE momentum shift that might have led to a different outcome for Pompey. Begovic kept us in that Chelsea game for the entire game, James started against Sunderland (extremely disappointing draw) and Begovic shut out Burnley the week before that.
Really, if you discount his first two games against Man U and Aston Villa, Begovic really has been solid at the back. I still think that as Begovic would be a good keeper as long as he was confident and saw plenty of minutes.
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Posted by Pompey Fan in the USA on 12/23/2009
And how about the play of KP Boateng and Kaboul as of late? With the exception of his dreadful penalty miss against Stoke, Boateng has been a spark plug for the Pompey attack. Boateng and Kaboul are two young players for Pompey that have a ton of potential as well.
I loved Grant putting Belhadj on the wing against Liverpool this weekend. It certainly paid off for them, but do you think Grant will play Belhadj in an attacking position from here on out?
West Ham is almost a must-win for us. Its a potential 6-pointer that could even lift us out of the relegation zone for now. I see a 2-1 win for Pompey at Upton Park with Boateng and Dindane finding the back of the net
Posted by Marcus on 02/13/2010
Great article as for me. It would be great to read more concerning that theme. Thanks for sharing this information.
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