A draw against Pompey is a good result - positivity thread

[kurtangle01]

so a point at the likes of boro fulham bolton are good as well, me ****ing arse. team display was **** and you gotta get up for these games and anything less than 3 points are points thrown away. sorry for the negativity post. if wins against sunderland and derby are gonna get praise then **** performances like this are gonna be critisised.

Spot on, mate.

[CAD]

All this God damn rotation bull****e. Momo / Alonso at CM?!? Are you mental, Rafa? Have you no eyes?

Why didn't he field best possible today and then let Mono and Crouch run there heads off against Porto?

Start Gerrard and Torres and get the 3 points? So what if they played wednesday? What is wrong with this man?

We will never win the PL with 'Rotation Rafa'.

[JPK]

so a point at the likes of boro fulham bolton are good as well, me ****ing arse. team display was **** and you gotta get up for these games and anything less than 3 points are points thrown away. sorry for the negativity post. if wins against sunderland and derby are gonna get praise then **** performances like this are gonna be critisised.

Well said

[Guest]

If Rafa wins us the league at the end of the season all this wingeing would have served nothing. We all want to win but for a reason or another it's not always possible all the time. We played poorly yes, but it's sickening hearing people criticizing Rafa for his squad rotation as it's a cliché used by the press too often.

We have a fantastic squad, so it doesn't matter who plays, same for Chelsea and Man Utd. Players aren't machines and with competitive internationals (with the added pressure that England had to win both these matches) being played midweek, it's even difficult to keep everyone on tip top form every time.

People should start complaining when we're out of the title race, not after 5 matches. It's equally relevant when we win 6-0 against ****e teams like Derby and when people are saying we're gonna win this or that.

[Konstro]

Manchester United 19 13 3 3 37:15 42
Chelsea 19 12 4 3 27:13 40



This are stats from last season, away games. As you can see it`s not that team have to win all away games to be champions.

It wasn`t great performance, we had few shaky moments in defence, rotation policy didn`t pay out ( for now) but if somebody wants to take into acount that it was best game pompey played this year, that with Campbell they are 30 % better then without him, that Bupa Diop had oustanding debut and ( have already forgotten?) internationals didn`t help at all it wasn`t that bad, was it?

We are in way better situation than last year and in march or april when mancs and chavs will be whinging again about injuries and tiredness maybe then andy f....ing gray and paul f....ing merson will understand what rotation is about when fresh, injury free and strong Redmen will be fighting to win at all fronts.

[Red Chilli]

What the problem fredo?

Why is it "sickening" to hear people criticising Rafa?

He's not a god you know. He's only a human. All of the criticism has been justified IMO. He ****ed up today, his selection was wrong. That's all people have said. What is so sickening about that?

If he get's the praise, which he does, he should also get the criticism when he makes mistakes. If he doesn't like it then TS but I'm sure the criticism means jack **** to him.

It's this lilly-livered complacency that sickens me from the likes of you. If we're happy with dropping points then we'll never win the league, we should be constantly striving to win not accepting draws

[akjs123]

The scum won away to the bluescum which are as tough opponent as pompey so us dropping 2 points is a bad result

[AFII]

What the problem fredo?

Why is it "sickening" to hear people criticising Rafa?

He's not a god you know. He's only a human. All of the criticism has been justified IMO. He ****ed up today, his selection was wrong. That's all people have said. What is so sickening about that?

If he get's the praise, which he does, he should also get the criticism when he makes mistakes. If he doesn't like it then TS but I'm sure the criticism means jack **** to him.

It's this lilly-livered complacency that sickens me from the likes of you. If we're happy with dropping points then we'll never win the league, we should be constantly striving to win not accepting draws

Rafa got it wrong today. Torres and Babel should have played. He can take them off when we are 2-0 up instead of using them off the bench with 30 minutes or so left. Rafa gave away 60 minutes of a very important game just because he wanted to rest Torres.

We need Torres on the pitch from the start in more or less every game. Rafa can rest him in the CC and FA cup games instead, not in the PL or CL.

[Craig_H]

If Rafa wins us the league at the end of the season all this wingeing would have served nothing.

The point you're missing, is that if we drop the matchwinners in away games like today's, we WONT win the league.

[Oberon]

If you want positive at least that bitter Nugent didn't score against us

[kurtangle01]

The point you're missing, is that if we drop the matchwinners in away games like today's, we WONT win the league.

We needed them today since we were facing such tough opposition on their patch. Our squad is good enough and big enough but you take Lampard, Essien and Drogba out the Chelsea team and they'd struggle down at Fratton Park. Same goes for the mancs if they wen there with no Ronaldo, Rooney Giggs or Scholes.

Rafa would have been able to rest the players he left out today next Saturday against Birmingham. There would be less risk leaving them out in a match like that.

It's gone though and we've got a point more than we had there last year. The next few matches are very winnable for us and I'm sure the league table will continue to look rosey for us as the weeks progress.

[Guest]

What the problem fredo?

Why is it "sickening" to hear people criticising Rafa?

He's not a god you know. He's only a human. All of the criticism has been justified IMO. He ****ed up today, his selection was wrong. That's all people have said. What is so sickening about that?

If he get's the praise, which he does, he should also get the criticism when he makes mistakes. If he doesn't like it then TS but I'm sure the criticism means jack **** to him.

It's this lilly-livered complacency that sickens me from the likes of you. If we're happy with dropping points then we'll never win the league, we should be constantly striving to win not accepting draws

The point you're missing, is that if we drop the matchwinners in away games like today's, we WONT win the league.

Match winners or not they won't play in every match. I am not satisfied with a point away at pompey, that's not the point. Criticizing Rafa for squad rotation is just not good enough IMO, as he's trying to manage a squad for a season of 60+ games. It was no guarantee we would have won with Torres and Gerrard in the team today and it would have felt worst if we'd lost or drawn with them from the start.

Some of you have been drooling how fantastic our squad was a couple of weeks ago. Give them time and accept that it was on the back end of a week of international matches.

[Craig_H]

We needed them today since we were facing such tough opposition on their patch. Our squad is good enough and big enough but you take Lampard, Essien and Drogba out the Chelsea team and they'd struggle down at Fratton Park. Same goes for the mancs if they wen there with no Ronaldo, Rooney Giggs or Scholes.

Rafa would have been able to rest the players he left out today next Saturday against Birmingham. There would be less risk leaving them out in a match like that.

It's gone though and we've got a point more than we had there last year. The next few matches are very winnable for us and I'm sure the league table will continue to look rosey for us as the weeks progress.

I think you're basically agreeing with me mate.

All matches are winnable but if Rafa drops more clangers with team selection, they'll also be very lose-able.

He needs to learn NOW, otherwise forget the title.

[Red Chilli]

Match winners or not they won't play in every match. I am not satisfied with a point away at pompey, that's not the point. Criticizing Rafa for squad rotation is just not good enough IMO, as he's trying to manage a squad for a season of 60+ games. It was no guarantee we would have won with Torres and Gerrard in the team today and it would have felt worst if we'd lost or drawn with them from the start.

Some of you have been drooling how fantastic our squad was a couple of weeks ago. Give them time and accept that it was on the back end of a week of international matches.

Not good enough for whom?

Why can't we criticise Rafa? How are we meant to progress if Rafa is deemed above criticism?

That's just bollocks. The day he escapes criticism is the day we win 38 league games a season

[Craig_H]

Match winners or not they won't play in every match. I am not satisfied with a point away at pompey, that's not the point. Criticizing Rafa for squad rotation is just not good enough IMO, as he's trying to manage a squad for a season of 60+ games. It was no guarantee we would have won with Torres and Gerrard in the team today and it would have felt worst if we'd lost or drawn with them from the start.

Some of you have been drooling how fantastic our squad was a couple of weeks ago. Give them time and accept that it was on the back end of a week of international matches.

Balls mate, i agree they wont play every match. But matches like today, they MUST play (if fit).

Even Porto away would've been a better game to rotate (let alone Brum at home). We're top class in europe and have proven that we can go away without some of our big guns and still get results. The Premiership is different and Rafa needs to get that into his head.