Barclay's Asia Hong Tournament starts tomorrow:

[MrEleganza]

Tuesday:

Portsmouth vs. Fulham, 5:30 AM Eastern (10:30 AM GMT)
Liverpool vs South China (Hong Kong FA Cup winners) FC, 8:15 AM (1:15 PM GMT)

Friday:
Third Place match, 5:30 AM Eastern (10:30 AM GMT)
Championship 8 AM Eastern (1 PM GMT)

All of the games will be broadcast on Setanta Sports in North America, and on the net (check www.myp2p.eu (http://www.myp2p.eu) for details the day of).

The grouch in me says,

We better win this considering that we opted not to apply for the Intertoto Cup (which equals easy ticket to the UEFA Cup) to play in this stupid thing.

The happy guy in me says,

I cannot WAIT for this, to see our new guys for the first time, and maybe knock off Liverpool for the championship and send a message to the rest of the EPL. :)

[Barton8]

Pompey 1- Fulham- 0 courtesy of Benjani. All new signings played and we saw a promising Muntari Mendes partnership (ALthough reports said Muntari gave too much of the ball). Great game for Campbell and James.

FINALS:
Pompey VS Liverpool

[MrEleganza]

Pompey 1- Fulham- 0 courtesy of Benjani. All new signings played and we saw a promising Muntari Mendes partnership (ALthough reports said Muntari gave too much of the ball). Great game for Campbell and James.



Utaka and Cranie didn't play. Utaka was a late injury scratch. Harry said he would play Friday.

Contrary to those reports, I actually thought Muntari easily looked the best of the newcomers. Nugent will be fine but he looked very tentative.

Campbell and James both indeed were pretty outstanding. Campbell was named Man of the Match.

Taylor was apparently given a green light - or maybe even an order - to shoot on sight. He was bombing it from everywhere. Two particularly came close, one right after halftime and one in 2nd half injury time when he whistled one off the post.

Everyone looked pretty decent, actually, except maybe Nugent. Considering how oppressive it was (they called a water break in the first half), it was especially a commedable performance.

LuaLua looked more polished than usual...he knows he is fighting for his job, even as a substitute.

Benjani's goal was pretty much a sitter, but he still put it away solidly.

[andybart]

Nugent has really taken the biggest step up of our new players as all of them have been playing top flight football.I am sure it will take him a little while to adjust but will come good.
I like Lua Lua but he can be so frustrating but also so unpredictaly good, maybe he will knuckle down and prove he can turn games and be consistent.
Roll on the final be nice to beat Liverpool .

[Barton8]

Can't wait for Fridays game, hope Cranie plays.

[whitestones]

pompey win over liverpool on penalties, kranjcar scores the winning penalty

http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news?slug=afp-fblengprasiahkg&prov=afp&type=lgns
http://home.skysports.com/list.aspx?hlid=479083&CPID=8&clid=47&lid=&title=Pompey+win+Asia+Trophy&channel=&

thats a nice chunk of cash they got themselves

[MrEleganza]

Well, a win is a win...but Liverpool dominated play and possession from beginning to end. Pompey only had one real shot at goal (O'Neil had the GK one-on-one straight on and made a mess of it) and that's about it. In fact, I don't think I've seen a game in the last three years where Pompey had less possession. It's worrying. The full time score was really Liverpool 0, David James 0. It was double frustrating because Liverpool didn't even play guys like Crouch and Gerrard (who only came on for five minutes).

And that brings me the one positive. I know it's only two preseason games, but somehow David James seems even better than last year (he did have one silly giveaway but it didn't cost him). Two clean sheets and two saves in the shootout...after Pompey had fallen behind 1-0 and 2-1 in the shootout, no less.

Defensively, Cranie and Traore played and were a step down from Lauren and Hreidarsson (who came in late) but they got the job done. I'm trying to figure out why Primus didn't play at all in either game.

Utaka, Nugent, Benjani and Lua Lua played and they all get a grade of "incomplete" because no one could get the ball to them.

That brings me to the midfield. I love this midfield, I think it's excellent and deep and I've said so. But thinking about it, all of their qualities are offensive. None of them seem to adept at winning possession from the other team and delivering the ball to the strikers. We need to find a ballhawk. Otherwise, it doesn't matter how much offensive firepower we have.

But enough negativity, especially following just one game. We got a trophy, our first of any sort in the Premiership, and we beat an elite team to get it.