Posh Blog

Tuesday's game took us to Leyton Orient which happens to be very near to the site of the 2012 Olympics. This being Britain I didn't think we'd actually have started yet, probably due to the builders being on another tea break but I was pleasantly surprised to see they have already turned a massive area into a building site. For once it looks like we might meet a target on time as there is still 3 years to finish it.

I didn't actually realise when we got to the football stadium, we stopped at a block of flats which I thought was odd until I saw a gap between them that the ground was completely surrounded by flats. Indeed some of the balconies actually faced onto the pitch so you can watch the games from the comfort of your own home. It felt a little strange inside the game as the flats raised higher than the ground itself, it was almost like you were indoors.



For a Tuesday night there was a
read more..

At Saturday's game against Southend I ended up standing next to a guy with his young daughter who appeared to be about five. She was sitting on the barrier to get a better view. I had to wonder what her dad would think of any bad language as the London Road Terrace is not one of the family areas of the ground where bad language is prohibited. I was still debating with my mate about whether it would be ok for us to shout a few choice words when necessary when the girl's Dad shouted "You *bleep*ing Prick!" at the referee. I guess that's question answered. I don't hold out much hope for his daughter though, it'll only be a matter of time before she's calling her Dad a *bleep*ing prick around the house. Oh well.

Our team for the game had to be changed yet again due to more injuries. Zakuani was out from defence and Coutts was out from midfield which meant bringing Tommy Williams back from inj
read more..

Pretty much sums up Tuesday night's game against Carlisle. You could have been forgiven for falling asleep during the first half as so little happened. To be fair to the teams, you could forgive them for perhaps being a little shaken at seeing Gabriel Zakuani stretchered off on a spine board, something which ensured there would be 9 minutes of extra time. Then Lee Frecklington also had to make his way off after pulling a hamstring. Fortunately Zakuani escaped serious injury and will be back in two weeks while Frecklington could be out for quite a while longer.

The ball largely stayed in the midfield for the majority of the first half, even when one of the two teams did stray forward the shot that resulted was nothing to worry about. Carlisle gave us plenty of trouble back in October and we looked like we might struggle to win again tonight.

We started the second half slightly better, final
read more..

Saturday marked the first time in 6 games that we didn't concede the first goal, and also the first time in 6 games that we kept a clean sheet. It's not a coincidence that we were trying a different formation for the first time from the start of a match in this game. We kept possession a lot better and we were able to pass it around a lot better, even though the opposition were defensively minded. It's good that we finally have a Plan B tactic as we had been sussed out by most teams and it cost us in recent games.



Edgar Street is one of the most dilapidated grounds in the league but it still makes for a better visit than the Withdean Stadium. Most of the ground has hardly been developed at all since it was built which makes for a rather interesting look. The Cargill Stand is old terracing on the bottom and strangely new seating on the top, but being so close to the road it only has about
read more..

A wonderful sound could be heard at Prenton Park on Tuesday night. Joe Lewis was finally commanding his defence. Due to the low attendance it was quite easy to hear player shouts at some points in the match and Joe Lewis was the loudest of all of them. He's been criticised in the past for not communicating with his defenders but now it seems he's past all of that. Now to erradicate some of the errors and he will be well on the way to being a top goalie.

In a previous blog I mentioned that people in Tranmere are basically as thick as shit, specifically their use of anti-Welsh chants in an attempt to taunt us, despite them being far closer to Wales than we are. I thought maybe I'd give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe they were just chanting at our Welsh centre back Craig Morgan. Except it seems that isn't the case, Morgan didn't play last night due to injury yet they again chanted abou
read more..

Our first half performance against Huddersfield was pretty bad, as was our entire match against Leicester, but Saturday was just pathetic. Yeovil are one of the lowest scoring teams in the league yet they quite easily beat us at home no less. The statistics state that they had 74% of the possession. That's completely unacceptable for a side supposedly challenging for an automatic promotion spot this year. Sure we had a makeshift defence which was further weakened during the match but that's no excuse for a performance like that.

We hadn't really threatened their goalie much in the first 30 minutes and that's when they took the lead. We failed to deal with a set piece allowing their giant centre back to head the ball on for their striker to put away. The second goal was just two minutes later and was almost completely identical to the first except this time the defender just headed it stra
read more..

If my last away trip was to the best stadium of the season, my latest one is to what is undoubtedly the shittest. The Withdean is Brighton's "temporary" stadium of over 10 years and is little more than an athletics track with some scaffolding and a shed around the edges. The away fans are situated about 50 yards away from the edge of the pitch which means you can struggle to see the game if the ball is in the other half. The stands are completely open to the elements and are impossible to generate any atmosphere in. To top it all off, this wonderful experience cost £20! Only £6 less than it cost to see us play at Elland Road, or £15 more than it cost to see us play West Brom.



The match itself didn't start off brilliantly, we tried out a new formation which made us look disjointed an unorganised. Giving a rare start to Shaun Batt appeared to be a bad idea as he misplaced almost every si
read more..

Or at least we do now after playing two away games there in the past two weeks and losing them both. I thought perhaps we might have a good chance against both these teams after we beat both at home without conceding but after a laboured win on Tuesday night against bottom of the league Crewe we decided to give our worst performance of the season against Huddersfield.

It's been a while coming but Gaby Zakuani has finally had a bad game in a Posh shirt. Having just watched the replay of it on TV he is out of position for the goal allowing their striker through on goal where there was no way he could have missed. Unless you're Craig Mackail-Smith there is no way any decent striker could miss, even though he has 19 goals this season he still managed to not put away two one on one's which by my count makes about 15 he hasn't scored when he should have now. He's good but he could be even bette
read more..

George Boyd firmly cemented himself as the most entertaining player to ever play for Posh in the second half of last night's game as he practically won the match by himself for us. Crewe were bottom of the league going into this game having conceded five against the Wobblers at the weekend. When we played them at Gresty Road we were very below par and despite them being the worst team I've seen play all season they managed to come away with a draw.

They must have thought they were going to get lucky again. Within 90 seconds of kickoff they were one nil up. It completely silenced the London Road end as no one could quite comprehend what had happened. Martin made a mistake and suddenly they were through and scored. This obviously effected the players too, Crewe were able to go back to their original formation of one goalkeeper and ten defenders and whilst we had all the possession, we had v
read more..

This is where your strikers will attempt to walk the ball all the way into the net instead of taking the best oppurtunity to shoot. Sure we had some long range shots that tested the goalie, almost all from George Boyd, but there were occasions where we were rushing through on goal and instead of taking the shot we took an extra touch and then passed it again in the box, which invariably was going to put us in trouble.



The match itself was pretty even although the final scoreline suggests otherwise. Both sides had some great chances in the first half but with quality keepers at both ends it was always going to be hard to score. Leeds certainly had the better chances in that half but neither of us really were able to put them away.

In the second half we started off pretty brightly, having a few chances at their goal. As soon as Leeds bought Jermaine Beckford on it all started to go wrong tho
read more..