Portsmouth V Hull City Betting: Saturday, 20th March

Portsmouth V Hull City

Saturday, 20^th March – 15:00 GMT

Portsmouth

League Position: 20th

Recent Form: DLWLL

Portsmouth’s fortunes are about to turn decidedly worse as a nine-point deduction for entering into administration is about to be enforced on them, which would make the club the first ever to partake in a Premiership fixture whilst in administration – A record, but not one Pompey fans will be jumping over the hill about. With relegation to The Championship almost a certainty now, the players face an almost impossible task of avoiding the drop as the gap between them and safety would be a hefty seventeen points, but they do have the chance on Saturday to at least reduce the deficit with victory over a Hull side with problems of their own.

Portsmouth, though, don’t have too many fond memories of playing Hull, and neither do we as spectators as the last two meetings between the two have finished goalless. However, these two have only met once at Fratton Park before and that ended in an entertaining 2-2 draw, although that did come at a time when both teams knew how to score and weren’t in crisis. That isn’t really the case now, far from it, with Portsmouth managing just 25 goals after 29 games – Averaging less than a-goal-a-game. They have, however, scored a large proportion of those at Fratton Park, 17 in fact, so if there are to be goals ever in another meeting between the two then Saturday could be the day. 

Pompey’s recent form at Fratton Park though is abysmal to say the very least, with their home record looking more like that of an away one (3-2-9). Their accumulation of just three home wins is the worst in the league, while their nine defeats they’ve suffered on home soil is also the highest. Just to compound the misery of the fans, Portsmouth haven’t won a home fixture since the middle of December when beating Liverpool 2-0. A victory which was recently reversed in emphatic style just last Monday with Liverpool gaining their revenge by smashing Portsmouth 4-1 at Anfield.

We’ve said this a few times now and Pompey have popped up to prove us wrong on each occasion, but surely their heavy defeat at Anfield on Monday night is the last we’ll see of Portsmouth in that surely they don’t have an awful lot more in the tank to give. The morale of the squad can’t be at all high right now as the club is a farce, while you’d like to think their leave their best performance for the Semi-Final clash with either Fulham or Tottenham, which isn’t too far away now. Even so, we don’t rate Hull so Pompey fans could be celebrating early, albeit in a somewhat in vein manner.

Hull City

League Position: 19th

Recent Form: WLLLL

It’s been a bit of a pantomime at The KC in recent days, with the farcical ranging from a Jimmy Bullard Vrs Nick Barmby scrap to Phil Brown ultimately leaving his post, or being thrown out as the comments we heard seemed to reveal. We actually felt it was a smart decision from the board, what with their being nine games left to change Hull’s fortunes in avoiding the drop, and it’s nine fresh games for the new manager to come into the club and impose his new tactics and style of play onto a team that weren’t going anywhere fast. 

Ian Dowie, Hull City’s new man at the helm (A popular pundit on Sky Sports News), was Phil Brown’s replacement and it’s been a good few years since we seen the former Crystal Palace manager, as well as many other clubs he’s been associated with, strutting his stuff on the sidelines. Only time will tell whether he has the spark and motivational skills still in his locker to lift Hull out of the doom and gloom of the drop zone, but he does have an opportunity to earn cult status at the club should he do the audacious and avoid the drop.

The problem for Dowie is Hull’s recent exploits in the league haven’t shown any indications that the players are up for the fight, with the Tigers’ 2-1 defeat at home to Arsenal last Saturday their fourth league defeat on the spin. However, it’s about to sound a whole lot worse for Ian Dowie as this Hull crop struggle to Kingdom come in away outings, with Hull yet to register an away win all season, with a record of 0-4-11. It doesn’t stop there though, as Hull fans are having to endure an away losing run of four games currently, although fans are praying Iain Dowie is the man to get them out of this slumber.

Fortunately for Dowie, he doesn’t have too many injuries or suspensions to deal with, while he even has the lively character of Jimmy Bullard at his disposal, something Phil Brown was unfortunate not to have on most matchdays. It was Jimmy Bullard, the joker of the Hull pack, who equalised on Saturday from the penalty spot against Arsenal. Both Bullard and Dowie will need to raise the spirits of the players after a string of bad results, but the players could react positively to this change in management as places in the starting eleven are now up for grabs – and there to be lost.

Match Verdict: Draw – 3.40 Boylesports

This was difficult as neither look worthy of a win on paper, whilst all three previous meetings between the two have finished honours even. However, if we were to have a punt then it probably would be Hull, although we wouldn’t touch them either unless some tropical lady dressed in a Tigers shirt paid me to. The draw is the only selection we feel most comfortable with, and so we’ll play safe with that punt, although we hope for the fans sake we get a good game down at Fratton Park as the fans could do with some entertainment, while they need to saviour every last moment of Premiership action as they won’t be returning any time soon you would feel.

Match Odds:

Portsmouth – 2.20 SkyBet

Draw – 3.40 Boylesports

Hull City – 3.60 Bet365

SoccerBetting Value Pick: 2-2 Correct Score – 15.00 totesport