Happy Harry's Pure Filth

THE visit of Portsmouth to Villa Park this Saturday could easily be billed the battle of the sharp-shooters.

Jermain Defoe sits joint-top of the Premier League scoring charts with five goals, Villa's own Gabby Agbonlahor and John Carew have four apiece and former Villan Peter Crouch has three.

But I'm seeing it as Lower Trinity versus Harry Redknapp 2.

Redknapp, you will recall, was rather less than complimentary about a section of the home support following Pompey's 3-1 win at Villa in December.

To set the scene... a week or so earlier Redknapp had been one of the five people arrested as part of the City of London's investigation into football corruption and was held at Chichester police station.

Never ones to miss a trick the Villa fans suggested something to the tune that the former West Ham manager was "going down with Derby"- or something to that matter.

It won't have stopped there though, and after seeing Villa trail to some magical strikes from Sully Muntari one or two choice words will have been cast in frustration at the Pompey boss.

"You've got people saying stuff behind you with little kids shouting filth," Redknapp said after the game. "I didn't bring my kids up to talk like that."

I'm just guessing that another bumper crowd of 38,000-plus might just want to remind Happy Harry about biting the hand that feeds.

It might not have been nice. It wouldn't have been the best of times for Harry, and he certainly had a point about any indecent bile that may have been thrown his way.

But such are the monumental sums earned by managers and especially players these days that they are walking not so much a tightrope, but more a plank by complaining about it.

There is an 'us' versus 'them' mentally nowadays. There has never been a bigger divide between supporters and clubs and when managers who earn seven figure sums a season (that's before the decimal point) want to gripe about fans, then it looks rather unsightly.

If Villa win on Saturday- and a fit side without injuries should come through especially with Pompey being without key midfielder Lassana Diarra- then Harry should escape another ear-bashing.

But if things get difficult for Martin O'Neill's men then Harry might find some boisterous Villa fans have memories like elephants (that's to say they don't forget, not that they are out to protect their ivory).

It promises to be a fascinating encounter, not least as I suspect Carlos Cuellar is in line for a first league start following Curtis Davies' struggles at Stamford Bridge.

Three points for Villa and they will continue to batter down the door of the top four and that defeat at Chelsea will be long forgotten.

A poor display and a draw or defeat at all sorts of questions about Villa's capacity to compete on two fronts this season will be posed.

It wasn't just a two goal defeat in West London, it was a battering.

Pompey are by no means a bad side, especially with their front two. But neither are they the force that kept pace with Villa neck-and-neck last season.

A six goal defeat at Manchester City was their last away result in the Premier League.

Villa need a good result to take them forwards to their biggest European night in a decade against Ajax.