It looks like an intriguing clash at Fratton Park, with Portsmouth and Leeds needing the points for very different reasons, but Neil Warnock is still wary of Pompey despite their problems off the field.

The new boss told our official site "What's happening off the field won't affect what happens on it. Footballers just want to play football and that's what they will do. When you look at the players they have, there's not many bad players at the club. They certainly have a good 11. We've had a hard week and a good week, and we'll be looking to get amongst them on Saturday. It's one of the noisier places in terms of atmosphere."

Warnock has spent the week assessing the squad he has inherited, but although he may make one or two changes in personnel through the loan market, we can’t expect too many radical changes before the summer. According to Ken Bates "He thinks the team needs to be juggled and adjusted rather than all-out revolution.”

Snoddy has been singing Warnock’s praises on the official site, and has also been warning that we can’t take it easy tomorrow. "He was there last Saturday, he was in at half-time, he was in at the end, he chatted before, and I think the team spirit shone through. He's come in, been honest with the lads, told us our jobs, and you do it his way or you won't get in the team. But you have to do it well, you can't just can't turn up and expect to get a result.You have to earn the right to play and you have to respect the opposition. Coventry was a fine example where we got stung and we don't want that to happen again.”

Warnock has suggested he might use Snoddy in a central position, but that raises question of who is going to play on the wing in his place. Presumably we will have the White/Pugh combination on the left, but who will give us some width on the right now that Townsend has gone to Birmingham? Rogers is unlikely to be involved after being carried off last week. We have a few other problems as Ross McCormack has missed training this week due to an injury, and Mika Vayrynen is going to have an operation on Monday. But Warnock has said that a few fringe players might get their chance as “Paynter, Forssell, Bromby, and Nunez all did well in the reserve game on Tuesday."

But whatever problems we’re facing pale into insignificance compared to those of our south coast opponents, who have been plunged into a relegation battle by a ten point deduction, and whose players have had to take a pay cut to help their financial problems. To encourage fans to turn up tomorrow they have had the players manning the ticket offices and they could go out of business altogether if they don’t find a buyer by May.

For the time being Pompey are being run by administrator Trevor Birch a familiar figure to Leeds fans as he was temporarily in charge at Elland Road when we teetered on the brink before the Krasner consortium bought the club in 2004. And as if the financial problems weren’t enough, they will missing numerous players for various reasons tomorrow. Striker Dave Kitson is suspended and top scorer Erik Huseklepp has moved to Birmingham to ease the desperate cashflow situation. But on the other hand, David Norris and Greg Halford are expected to be available again after injury.

It goes without saying that Leeds need a win tomorrow, having already dropped points in a relatively easy set of fixtures in February, with the games to come in March looking much harder. Several teams above us played games in hand during the week, and we can be thankful that Blackpool lost while Brighton and Hull drew with each other, but we could have done without Birmingham’s victory. All of this left us five points short of the play-off positions, but it’s still partly in our own hands as we still have to play all the teams from fourth to eighth. We will need a good run of results to get to sixth, but I think we’ll get three points tomorrow to help us on the way.

Photo: Action Images

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