Intro and Team News

IBO Reporter - channonite

|After the euphoria of giving Portsmouth a good old fashioned stuffing in the League Cup on Tuesday, it was back to normal Premier League business at the weekend, with the away game at Spurs. Except that all was not as it seemed. When the team sheets were released at 2pm the team looked decent. Gunn, Cédric, Bednarek, Yoshida, Bertrand, Romeu, Højbjerg, Ward-Prowse, Boufal, Redmond, Ings. I was quietly confident.

By the time the team took the field just before 3pm the team turned out to be Gunn, Bednarek, Yoshida, Vestergaard, Ward-Prowse, Romeu, Højbjerg, Bertrand, Boufal, Redmond, Ings. That didn't look so good and where was Cédric? Word was that he had got injured during the warm-up, but the Saints fans in the away end were late getting in, thanks to problems with the gates/entry system and no-one that I have spoken to actually saw the players until they took the field. Fair enough, but he had suffered some sort of injury, yes? After the match, Ralph said that he didn't know what had happened, other than he had been told that Cédric wouldn't couldn't play. In any case, Ralph had seen the Spurs team sheet and wanted to change formation to three CBs, which is why Vestergaard was brought into the team. Strange. Is there more of a story here? Although the injury seems to have been confirmed with Cédric subsequently posting a picture on Instagram of himself with his leg strapped up, but does that answer everything? Ralph's confused explanation only served to confuse, rather than clarify.

Anyway, any remaining feel good factor disappeared in a game that I am sure the original line-up would have had a good chance of winning, even more so when Aurier idiotically got himself sent off, just after the half hour mark, by earning two yellow cards in rapid succession. It just didn't work out that way though.

Match Report

IBO Reporter : channonite

|The match report will appear here soon

Match Stats

Referee: Graham Scott

Attendance: 59,645