And the fact he's gonna score the winner... I'll say it again, a Pompey lad scoring the winner in a cup final against the Mancs.... has a nice ring to it... The football Gods have spoken!
If we start like we did yesterday it could be all over in the first 20 minutes. It really took us a while to get going and that might not be as affordable at Wembley. Once we started to tick we really did play some lovely stuff! Gabbiadini's willingness to shoot is a refreshing change from the bumbling indecision prior to his signing. Great way to sign off before the final, what a time to be alive.
We rarely let in early goals (runs round touching everything made of wood)....we will look to resist United's initial pressure, then join in at 20 mins. They are officially the home side....we'll let them start like that as there is no hope that they will start negatively.
I think there should be a little credit to Sunderland. They were buoyed by their big win last week and started the match at a fast pace and really tried to press us high up the pitch. Sort of reminded me of our start against Spurs. Ultimately they couldn't maintain that pace and we got a foothold on possession.
I'd love to stick with 4-2-3-1 but I'd be amazed if we played Dusan as a 10 again because that's basically leaving the midfield wide open and going mano a mano, which is great (and refreshing) against Sunderland, maybe not against United as that's probably their strength and they'd kill us on the counter eventually. Then again maybe with a week and a half of prep Dusan can be drilled into man-marking Herrera. I'd be very surprised if we don't just play 4-3-3 with the same personnel, maybe a compromise would be Davis or JWP playing as the 10 but I'm not sure. As long as we keep our midfield narrow so we can play through it quickly I'll be fine with 4-3-3, I'd rather us not have our lengthy transition in shape where the CMs split out once we have possession.
It's alright. We got battered for the first 20 minutes in 1976. Probably should have been 3-0 down by that point, but then slowly we started to match them. Mind you, it still beats me how we scored on about 75 minutes then played for what I remember as being at least another hour...
12-year old me was hugging the cushion for all I was worth for those 7 minutes with tears streaming down my face... never been happier
I wasn't a Saints fan then Would undoubtedly have watched it because in those days the FA Cup final was a big thing and would never have supported United, so I was probably happy....but I don't remember it
Exactly what I thought when I saw the match later. I think there was a back pass made between Sunderland defenders and it went a little short, but he on it in a flash and shooting. He scuffed it but I didn't care. I loved it. He didn't wait half an hour making a decision over who to pass it to in a favourable position, and then scuff it instead anyway. About 10 mins before that Redmond collected the ball and moved inside on the left about 5 yards outside Sunderland's area. A hole suddenly appeared because Gabby started to move left to give Redmond an option to through-pass or take a shot through the space where he had been. What did Nathan do.? He squared it to JWP and after another two or three passes the ball was back at the halfway line. A perfect good opportunity not seen. And we've been doing that too often all season. Hopefully, that attitude will now change. Take a shot lads.
