EPL Round 27: Portsmouth FC vs Sunderland AFC

By: Lucas | February 23rd, 2008

Good morning, Mackems. Yes, morning. As in AM. As in Six-thirty-in-the. This is what my life is thanks to Sunderland AFC: I get out of bed earlier on the weekends than during the week.

I’m a little groggy this morning: I have not had any caffeine yet (I just ground up the last of our Certified Fair Trade, Shade Grown Ethiopian whole bean coffee – really good stuff actually), and I admit to having enjoyed a bit of wine and whiskey last night while I and my gal watched season 3 of Dr. Who (David Tennant is Scottish!?). The punchline is: the Sunderland match isn’t even being shown live here; I have to wait another 2 hours for the tape-delay (meaning I’ll be at the tavern at 9am this morning, watching SAFC on one television, while on the other is Man Utd vs clown shoes). Dear god what have I become?

Anyway. I have to avoid internet now, drink my coffee and watch West Ham vs Fulham. Good things to report just by looking at the SAFC lineup: Andy Reid and Grant Leadbitter are in the starting IX; nice to have them fully fit. Portsmouth are coming off a really uninspiring and undeserved 1-0 win over Preston North End in the FA Cup last weekend, and their home form hasn’t been exactly world-beating this season. I predict a non-shitty result today for SAFC. I’ll be back here in ~4 hours with my thoughts on the match.

Ha’Way The Lads!

Later that morning…

Just got back from the bar: the chicken fried steak was good, the coffee was potable, and the game was shit. Sunderland looked OK in the first half; I was happy to see Andy Reid get the start and I thought he did some nice things early on.

After halftime Pompey put a lot of pressure on and we didn’t do shit. We were on our back foot for most of the second half, then conceded a soft penalty which Jermaine Defoe buried. As Keane said, “David James has probably had the easiest game of his career, I don’t think Portsmouth needed a goalkeeper today.”

At the very least I was able to look at the other screen and see the Geordies sobbing in their hands at St. James’ park. Some drunken yobbo was at the next table rooting for nufc, and he kept going on about how Keegan was going to rebuild newcastle. I had to laugh when the douchebag forgot which team he was rooting for, cheering and clapping when Rooney made it 4-1. But Schadenfreude is only so satisfying, and I left the bar pissed off that Sunderland couldn’t manage any kind of attack whatsoever.

1-0 to Portsmouth, and Sunderland are still winless away from SOL this season, having now taken a stupefying 2 points from 42. Next week represents probably our best remaining chance to get that road win, as we travel to Pride Park to face hapless Derby Co.