Source: Daily_Mail
Portsmouth 0 Fulham 1: Zamora gives Cottagers a winning start
Portsmouth are sponsored this season by a job-seekers' website. Much more of this, on and off the pitch, and there could be a few at Fratton Park in need of their services.
Yesterday's defeat by a neat, compact Fulham side, carrying on from where they left off last season under the astute Roy Hodgson, was one of the more predictable results of the Premier League's opening day given the summer events - or lack of them - in Portsmouth.
Bobby Zamora's winning goal was fortuitously deflected home off his backside but Fulham, with little else on target, had no need of much more against a lame Pompey side assembled on a shoestring.
They need an injection of funds and players but it all still looks along way off. Their potential new owner, Sulaiman Al Fahim, was at the game as nonexecutive chairman, but he was not spotted with the funds to complete his long-mooted takeover.
Portsmouth are among the favourites for relegation and it is easy to see why. Since the club's owner Alexandre Gaydamak refused to pump in more money a year ago, the debt has grown and they have been forced to sell players to service it.
More than £60million-worth of players have been sold, including
Glen Johnson to Liverpool and Peter Crouch to Tottenham this summer. But still the debt outstrips Pompey's ability to pay it off, with their crowds among the lowest in the league, along with their sponsorship opportunities.
Yesterday there were just 17,510 at Fratton Park, their lowest league gate for two years. Thus does the prospect of being the first Premier League club to go into administration loom if a takeover does not go through. And it is not looking good.
Al Fahim's prospective £60m purchase of the club was first announced at the end of May but almost three months on, it is still pending. Word is, too, that it is unlikely to go through, with Fahim's fortunes in Dubai having slumped, rendering him short of funds.
A Swiss consortium is in talks, it is said, but they have heard that before around these parts. If the club is in limbo, verging on chaos, the team is in some disarray, too. There are still some decent players left - David James, Sylvain Distin, Niko Kranjcar - but not enough and there is a raggle-taggle look to them.
Fulham, by contrast, settled and likely to be disturbed only by the impending £4m signing of Damien Duff from Newcastle, took early advantage, the goal perhaps a sign of what Pompey may be in for this season.
When Clint Dempsey tried his luck from almost 30 yards, the ball hit Zamora en route and deflected past James for a freakish goal.
Zamora might soon have doubled the lead when Danny Murphy's free kick found him alone at the far post but James turned the header over the bar.
Mark Schwarzer at the other end was barely troubled in the first half, though the Frenchman Frederic Piquionne was doing better than an underwhelming reputation at Lyon, from whom he is on a season's loan, might suggest. One header went just wide and a cross-shot was clutched by Schwarzer.
Nadir Belhadj missed a free header from Kranjcar's corner.
They emerged refreshed for the second half and Papa Bouba Diop, playing against his old club, put a shot over the bar, as did Kranjcar. It was Fulham, though, who should have had the game's second goal.
Zamora crossed from the right, Marc Wilson missed it, and Andy Johnson was left with a gilt-edged chance, only to put it wide from close range. Pompey had a good chance in added time when substitute David Nugent shot over from 10 yards but it was an isolated chance.
That old phrase on a losing opening day applies - it could be a long season for Portsmouth.
