Paul Scholes 600 Up

Last night (Wednesday), Paul Scholes made his 600th appearance for ManUre in their victory against Portsmouth which puts them clear of Liverpool again in the race for the Premiership title.


If you didn't know, Paul Scholes is Oldham born and bred and he is a serious REAL LATIC fan. When he can, he gets to Boundary Park to watch THE REAL LATICS play and I have been told on and off that when Paul finally decides to hang his boots up at Old Trafford, he wants to play for his hometown club for a season or two.


If ManUre win the title for the third successive season, could Mr Scholes be playing in the Blue of THE REAL LATICS next season?


WATCH THIS SPACE

All Change Please

So Adams sacked by Portsmouth and Scolari sacked by Chelsea..... its all change.


Eriksson for Portsmouth and Hiddink for Chelsea, only time will tell or even hours


Ruthless Russians? Not 'arf

FA Cup 4th Round. How Did Your Team Do?

Man Utd beat Spurs, Chelsea beat Ipswich, West Ham beat Hartlepool. The shock of the day was Swansea beating Portsmouth at Fratton Park.

Fulham EVENTUALLY beat Kettering (a non-league side) at Rockingham Road and there are two more games tomorrow, Sunday.

Cardiff take on Arsenal and for the 2nd time in a week, Everton travel to Anfield to take on Liverpool.

The draw for the 5th Round of the Cup is Sunday evening, 6.15pm UK time.

In League One news, The Real Latics got back to winning ways, beating Stockport County at Boundary Park, 3-1. The win puts The Real Latics into third place in the League One table, three points off an automatic promotion place

Oh Dear David

This howler from David James ended Portsmouth's UEFA Cup journey against Wolfsburg in Germany last night.

What a Week in Norf London

A week ago 'one day' Ramos (Juande) was Tottenham's manager. In the space of an hour he gets sacked along with Comolli, Poyet and the rest of Tottenham's backroom staff, then Tottenham announce they have paid Portsmouth £5m for the services of Harry Redknapp.

Harry's first game - Tottenham beat Bolton 2-0

Harry's 2nd game - Tottenham travel down the road to Arsenal and draw 4-4, after being 1-0 up, level 1-1, 2-1 down, 3-1 down, 3-2 down, 4-2 down, 4-3 down till those famous last seconds when Aaron Lennon equalises at the end where most of Tottingham's fans had left.

Oh how gutted must you be!!! Paid all that money and missed the comeback of the season (so far)!!!!

On Friday, Goonerville is up in arms. Wenger says this, Adebayor says that, Clichy reduced to tears and Arsenal captain, William Gallas rules himself out of the Stoke game - 'hamstring injury' apparently - the bloke is such a prima donna!! Remember the Birmingham incident last season?

Roll onto Saturday

Arsenal lose at Stoke 2-1
Hull almost embarrass Man Utd but lose 4-3
Tottingham beat Liverpool 2-1

Chelsea beat Sunderland 5-0 and ARE back at the top of the Premiership - with a goal difference of +23.

WELCOME TO HELL

Was the message that Arsene Wenger gave to Tony Adams after Adams was appointed Portsmouth manager this afternoon.

CONFIRMED

Harry Redknapp is the new Tottenham manager.


Redknapp will be at White Hart Lane, when Tottenham play Bolton Wanderers.

Rumour, Speculation, Gossip

It is 'rumoured' from a friend who knows a friend who is in the know!!!

Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more that Shaun Wright-Phillips is on his way from Chelsea to Portsmouth on loan for the season.

How can this be you might ask? Considering Portsmouth have already signed their allocation of two loan players - Jerome Thomas from Charlton and Armand Traore from Arsenal!!

Well to accommodate the 'potential' arrival of Shaunie, Thomas has signed a permanent contract.

If Shaunie goes to Pompey, remember you heard it here first.

The FA Cup

So the Carling Cup played its first round last midweek and on Saturday over 100 matches were played in the extra preliminary round of the FA Cup.

Yep the FA Cup has started its long road to Wembley, clubs after the trophy that Portsmouth won last May.

Click here for the full list of results.

The preliminary round matches will be played on Saturday 30th August. Click here for a full list of fixtures.

The Premiership Is Back!!!

The Premiership is back and kicks off in earnest on Saturday at 12.45pm (UK time) with Arsenal at home to WBA.

There will be LIVE coverage in the comments section of ALL of Saturday's action - so bookmark and return tomorrow for news of all the goals, scorers and sending offs.

Please note Chelsea play Portsmouth on Sunday at 1.30pm and Man Utd play Newcastle at 4.00pm.

Lampard Staying at Chelsea

Jose Mourinho and Inter Milan completed the signing of Portsmouth's Sully Muntari for £12.75m and then declared Muntari would be their last signing before Serie A 2008/09 season kicks-off.

Good news for Chelsea and Chelsea fans as Super Frank will be staying at Stamford Bridge for the 2008/09 season at least.

The way Super Frank has played in Chelsea's tour matches so far, he has played like a man who wants to stay unlike a man who wants to leave.

To catch his goals against Guandzhou Pharmaceuticals, click here and Chengdu, click here.

A Tale of Two Nigerians

ODEJAYI VILLIAN

KANU HERO

Two Nigerian footballers plying their trade for Portsmouth and Barnsley respectively have 'stole' the FA Cup headlines this weekend when both FA Cup semi-final finals (sponsored by E.ON) were played at the 'new' Wembley for the very first-time.

Firstly Portsmouth's Kanu scored the only goal in their win against WBA on Saturday, controversary again that there was a handball in the build-up to the goal.

Secondly in today's semi-final the hero of Barnsley's battling quarter-final 1-0 win over Chelsea Kayode Odejayi, squandered a clear-cut chance when on a breakway and on his own, with only Cardiff's Enckleman to beat, beat Enckleman but also beat Enckleman's left-hand post.

How he missed only Odejayi knows and no wonder Barnsley's manager Simon Davey got the 'shrinks' in during the week to sort out Odejayi's head. Its obvious they didn't do a very good job!!!

So without extra-time and without penalties, both cup-ties were settled inside 90 mins by the same score, 1-0 and we now know that Portsmouth will take on Cardiff City at Wembley on Saturday 17th May 2008.

I wrote earlier about the Wembley 'corporates' bothering to turn up to both semi-final games - and they did in style. Saturday's game attracted a crowd of over 83,000 and todays crowd was just under 83,000.

So well done!

So now both Portsmouth and Cardiff fans will have to do battle to get those priceless FA CUP Final tickets when last year's finallists Chelsea and Man Utd only received 25,000 each!!

THE FA CUP FINAL IS SET

PORTSMOUTH

v

CARDIFF

Wembley

Saturday 17th May 2008

Saturday's 3pm Kick Offs - LIVE SCORES!!!

The first FA Cup semi-final this weekend between Portsmouth and WBA ended Portsmouth 1-0 WBA, in the Premiership it finished Arsenal 1-1 Liverpool.

Scunthorpe 1-1 Sheff Wednesday in the Championship FINAL SCORE.

Full LIVE score service from 3pm (BST) will appear in the comments.

Look out for Chelsea at Man City, The Real Latics at Swindon and Ebbsfleet Utd at home to Woking

What a Great Weekend to Look Foward Too!!

Its FA Cup Semi-Final weekend and who would have thought that there would be only ONE Premiership team in the last four.

Both games will be played at Wembley and first up is:

WBA v Portsmouth - kick off 12.15pm

Then straight after from 3pm, there is a full League and Scottish programme. All scores including the first FA Cup Semi-Final will be LIVE on this blog and I WILL try and 'LIVE BLOG' the game at Wembley.

So if you can't get to a TV, radio or you are a wireless internet user on the move, let me keep you up to date with all the action tomorrow, Saturday from about 12.15pm (BST).

Then on Sunday from 4pm - Barnsley (the conquerors of Liverpool and Chelsea) go head to head against Cardiff City. Also in action on Sunday in the Premiership is Middlesbrough v Man Utd.

SSSSHHH!!! Kevin Phillips SSSSHH!!

At The Valley this afternoon WBA's Kevin Phillips equalised a Greg Halford goal for Charlton and as part of his goal-scoring celebrations, Phillips turned towards the Home end and did the famous SSSSHHHHHH!! (If you don't know what that is, just place your first finger towards your lips and blow out - you should get a SSSHHH!!)

After being congratulated by his team mates, Phillips then turned back towards the home end pointed to someone did the SSSSHHHH again and mouthed 'Wanker' to the unfortunate Addick soul or souls.

Obviously retribution for taking some sort of stick - but Mr Phillips, your 'abuse' was fully captured on TV cameras and you could be the next victim of trial by TV.

If you are looking for LIVE scores during the course of Saturday, look no further then here - starting with the early kick off at White Hart Lane when Tottenham take on Portsmouth at 12.45pm.

Luke Steele - Barnsley, WBA or Limbo?!?!?!

Spare a thought for Barnsley's Luke Steele or is he now WBA's?. One of many heroes in Barnsley's defeats of Liverpool at Anfield and Chelsea at Oakwell in the FA Cup, Luke looks destined to miss one of the biggest days of his footballing career

The reason!! His loan spell at Oakwell has ended and he has to return to his parent club, WBA.

By returning to WBA he cannot play in their FA Cup semi-final against Portsmouth because he is cup-tied by playing for Barnsley and if he DOES have to return to WBA he CANNOT play for Barnsley either!!!!

Come on WBA let the boy have his day or are you frightened that he is that good he will stop you from winning the FA CUP? Better get past Portsmouth first!!!

FA CUP (Sponsored by E.ON) Semi-Final Dates Confirmed

The FA Cup (sponsored by E.ON) semi-final dates have been set and firstly let me offer my congratulations to the semi-final teams: Barnsley, Cardiff City, Portsmouth and WBA.

The schedule is as follows:

WBA v Portsmouth Saturday April 5th, K.O. 12.15pm

Barnsley v Cardiff City Sunday April 6th, K.O. 4pm

Both games to be played at Wembley

It is a major surprise that not one team from the elite's top four have made it to the semi's and with no disrepect to the four teams that HAVE made it because they made it with grit, determination, desire and a little bit of luck, my question is will Wembley's 'Corporate City,' bother to turn up not just for the semi-finals, but to the final itself?!

The capacity of Wembley Stadium is 90,000 and Wembley is really a fantastic stadium, I should know I have been there three times in the last year. Of the 90,000 seats available for both semi-final games, 33,000 tickets have been allocated to each club, which leaves a total of 24,000 seats to be accounted for.

17,000 seats out of those 24,000 have been brought by Corporate City over a lease period of 3, 5, 10 years and these are the seats that you see empty at the start of each game played at Wembley so far, mainly at the start of the second half.

At the Carling Cup final, Wembley, The Fooball League and the sponsors set a challenge called the 'bums on seats at the start of the second-half,' challenge where money would be donated to charity for every seat occupied before the start of the second half.

I have no doubt that each club will sell out their allocations, despite none of the four clubs capacities at their respective home grounds being 33,000, but we all know the 'pothunters' surface once there is a grand day out to be grabbed and a day out at Wembley to see 'your' team is not a day out to pass up.

I bet the FA and E.ON are are quietly mumbling in their respective oak-panelled boardrooms that the decision to play the semi's at Wembley may well backfire and they may well hope that 'Corporate City,' turn up and put 'those bums on seats well before the first half whistle and second half whistles blow.

I for one will be watching with interest.

BTW to the supporters of all four teams, make sure you bring loads of money on your special day out...... Wembley is so expensive..... or you could boycott every food and drink outlet, like Chelsea and Man Utd fans have done in the past.

I Think This Bloke is Quality!!

Others will say that he is a complete nutcase and eccentric and weird, but I think he is BRILLIANT.

Meet Mr John Portsmouth FC Westwood, yes that is his real name!!! John Portsmouth FC changed his name officially by deed poll in 1994.

We Got Champions League, Championship, League One, League Two

Whatever you want we have got it. Just follow the comments for as many score updates as is possible in a really short space of time - or 90 minutes!!!

All to kick off soon!!!!

But before all that, Frank Lampard won his appeal for his sending off at West Ham at the weekend and Andy Griffin of Stoke City won his appeal as well. Neither player will serve bans for their sending-off's.

The 'Real' Latics are in action at home to Hartlepool - My man 'up norf' is there, and the shirt in my profile pic is making its debut down south at Dartford goals.... a hang out of Portsmouth's Glenn Johnson.

So COME ON THE LATICS!!!

FOLLOW ALL THE SCORES IN THE COMMENTS SECTION - BOOKMARK IT FOR YOUR FAVOURITE TEAM!!