I have decided that I am on a mission to revive conversation on this board, which has always been my favourite board. I'll probably forget in a week or so but I'll give it a go by starting with yesterday's match.

First of all I think that Shrewsbury are the dirtiest team I have seen at Fratton this season but worse than that was their petty, childish and infuriating Don Revie's Leeds 1970's style of so called 'professionalism'. The not fetching the ball when they were playing down time and it was their throw in, getting a corner and the player to take it wandering over from the diagonally opposite side of the field. To counter that you need a strong referee but unfortunately Mr. Coote (an unusually apt name for the most incompetent refereeing performance I've seen for a very long time) was far from that. As far as I saw he only gently remonstrated with them once over their delaying tactics. And how on earth did he miss the handball for a Pompey penalty? I know I have a Pompey bias but when I saw that on video I have no idea how he didn't award us a penalty. Of course the linesmen/assistants, call them what you will are there to help the referee and from what I could see neither of them did anything other than give a decision the way that the referee had already had done, after a quick look at him.

Having said all that I don't think it should hide what was another mediocre Pompey performance BUT we are still performing above our weight for a newly promoted side and are above my expectations for this time in the season. I said if we finished 10th I would be more than happy and I think that there or thereabouts is where we will finish.

Any opinions would be appreciated.