Fairly comfortable win in front of a disappointing crowd, seems all those "dedicated" fans who couldn't get tickets for the semi-final couldn't be arsed to turn up for a home game either!

Jermain Defoe broke the record for consecutive home goals and certainly looks to be a shrewd buy.

The main thing was to get through the game with no injuries and at the moment we have two potential problems in Hreidarsson and Utaka, time will tell.

Well that was fun, up at 5am on a Bank Holiday so I'm ready to start phoning Ticketmaster at 6am to try and get a couple of tickets.

Fifty minutes later I think I have succeeded, which is good as by 7am all tickets had been sold.

The process was a pain and god knows how much it cost me in phone calls, at least the "official" number didn't connect 90% of the time so I only had the free BT voice telling me all lines where busy, the other lines would connect first and then tell me all operators were busy so charging me for the call.

Did get through the first couple of stages of the "automated" system only to then be told they were busy!

All I need to do now is get the booking confirmed as there are a lot of stories about people thinking they have tickets only to find out later they don't!

A Portsmouth side short of a number of key players (Muntari, Diop, Diarra, Defoe and Campbell) manage to hold out until late in the game when two quick goals end our chances.

Due to some obscure rule change in the summer Defoe was not allowed to play.

Main concern is Diarras fitness with the semi-final approaching 

A dismal showing on my part last night, managing to be the first person to be eliminated!

Not good going "All In" on 2 pair!

Well done Graham

It seems, after a little worry, that I may finally have tickets for the Semi Final.

Will still feel happer when I see them in my hand!

Under the watchful eyes of Fabio Capello Portsmouth produced a confident display and two memorable goals to see of European rivals Aston Villa.

Defoe's first goal was a brilliant lob over a badly placed Carson from the corner of the penalty area followed by a brilliant own goal as Carson once again raced out of his area to clear at the feet of Defoe, only for the ball to canon off the legs of Reo-Coker and into an open goal

Well I suppose it's a milestone of sorts.

After not keeping to my diet as strictly as I should have over the last week or so, due to social commitments and a craving for cheese, I have managed to reach a weight loss of 10 lbs.

Of course this depends on how accurate my scales are!

The club have now announced the plan for distributing tickets for the FA Cup Semi-Final

In total the club have around 33,000 so as a season ticket holder I'm assured at least one, Yippee!

I am also entitled to try for a further 2 more, but considering there are only 4000 tickets available in this batch and around 13,000 season ticket holders it might be a bit of a problem getting them.

Amazing how many new "best" friends I have at the moment!!

A pretty up and down display after the heroics of Saturday.

After racing into a 2-0 lead we were predicting a big score as we were playing with some real class, then it all went wrong. Birmingham got two goals back and for about 40mins we couldn't find a blue shirt with the ball and at times it looked like Birmingham could grab a winner.

Eventually two late goals calmed our nerves.

Good to see a polished performance from Pedro Mendes who will be needed over the next few weeks. 

Not only did we beat Man Utd we also had the joy of watching these two throw their teddies out of the pram and prove, what everyone suspected, that they are the most ungracious losers in football. Quite amusing to watch really.

I find it strange that a manager who defended Roy Keane (remember his tackle on Alf Inge Haland) can then complain about any tackle we did! Obviously he wants the game turned into a non contact sport whenever you play ManUre so pretty boy Ronaldo doesn't graze his knee.

Well I suppose half of Manchester, all of Guildord and half of the Far East might have sympathy for them, the rest ofthe football world is loving it!

F.A. Cup Semi-Final here we come!

After leaving charmed life at the back, including clearing off the line twice and a shot turned onto the post by David James, we managed a breakaway which left Baros with a one on one with the goalkeeping who subsequently brought him down and earned a sending off, almost unprecedented at Old Trafford!

Sulley Muntari despatched the penalty and the longest 15mins of football ever followed as we hung on against 10 men.

The only downside? I had the chance to go and said no....DOH!

Well I never know if it actually does any good in preventing my P2P connections from being monitored but it certainly fucked up my FTP connection to Fasthosts.

After spending a couple of hours trying various settings and contacting Fasthosts and them informing me the cause was an incorrect username, a name I have been using for over 2 years, I finally tried my laptop and got a connection first time.

Eventually discovered that disabling PeerGuardian cured it. I have now added an exception to the Blocked List so I can hopefully have both running

Yet again a performance that made us look more a relegation side than a potential team for Europe.

After conceding a goal almost straight from kick off we managed to get back in the game via the slightest of touches to a Johnson cross by Defoe only to then show our lately typical abject defending to throw it away