West Ham mountain climber Robert Green still cannot catch England eye - Portsmouth match report

Robert Green spent the summer scrambling up Kilimanjaro - and now he has another mountain to climb with West Ham's season heading for a cliffhanger.

Hammers keeper Green's relief at keeping his first clean sheet in 26 League games, in front of watching England coach Fabio Capello, was soon tempered by disappointment.

Not only did he fail to make the cut for Wednesday's friendly against Germany, but West Ham's point was like bringing a water pistol to a gunfight in the Premier League's foothills.

If seven points from 10 games under Gianfranco Zola has not set the alarm bells ringing at Upton Park, there is nobody at home in the belfry.

Green's three saves denied England striker Jermain Defoe a hat-trick and earned the jellied eel preservation society the small mercy of their first shut-out since last February. But it was not enough to win the Hammers stopper a funeral in Berlin, and Green's celebration of his shut-out was as muted as the dreary stalemate set before Capello.

He said: "I've been sick of people reminding us that we haven't kept a clean sheet for goodness knows how long, so it's good to get that monkey off our backs. It's difficult to take when you concede silly goals, but this clean sheet was too long in coming."

Last season Green wore gloves embroidered with 'England's No.6' as a self deprecating reference to his place in the international pecking order - but if Joe Hart and Scott Carson are better keepers than him, Capello hasn't seen the joke.

Green packed up his troubles in a rucksack and tackled Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa, for charity in June, unaware that another uphill battle was awaiting the Hammers this campaign.

Without a win since September, and with Icelandic owner Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson battling to ride out the credit crunch, they have little money to spend - and perhaps even less margin for error in the scramble for safety this winter.

Green insisted: "I'm confident we will avoid a relegation fight. We have not had the best run, but if we can go up to Sunderland next week and keep another clean sheet we should be okay because it's not often that we go two games without scoring."

True enough, but this was a dull old game. Instead of 90 minutes, it was more like 40 winks. Apart from Green's duel with Defoe, the only things that glittered in the East End on Saturday were pearly kings.

Hammers manager Zola admitted: "There were moments when it looked like we were going to concede, but luckily on all those occasions Robert was brilliant.

"Today he played like a national team goalkeeper, which is what he deserves to be, and we need him playing like that consistently."

Portsmouth boss Tony Adams has made a decent start to succeeding Harry Redknapp, talking in fluent Chris Eubank psycho-babble and reclining so far in his touchline seat that it might have been his old counsellor's leather couch.

Clean sheets were Tone's stock-in-trade when he was lead choreographer of Arsenal's offside trap under George Graham, but he has discovered there is more to football than line-dancing.

Adams said: "At Arsenal we were much more boring than that - jeez, dear oh dear - but we had Ian Wright who could always nick a goal for us.

"I was pleased with our resilience here, but it's too easy to say it was a Tony Adams clean sheet because of my playing career. I'm not taking any credit for that."

Defoe, still unforgiven in bubble-blowing country for deserting West Ham when they went down four years ago, will keep Portsmouth away from the relegation rapids if they can hang on to him in the New Year transfer scrum.

Pompey deserved to win here and Adams said: "Jermain's a threat, and there will be some big clubs trying to get him in January but, hands off - he's mine. He's going to keep me in a job."

West Ham : Green 8, Neill 7, Collins 6, Upson 7, Ilunga 5 (Faubert 61, 6), Parker 6 (Mullins, 75), Collison 6, Behrami 7, Bellamy 6, Cole 5, Sears 5 (Etherington 46, 6).

Portsmouth : James 7, Johnson 8, Kaboul 6, Distin 8, Pamarot 5d, Davis 7, Bouba Diop 6, Diarra 6 (Traore 19, 5), Belhadj 6, Crouch 5 (Kanu 75), Defoe 7.

Referee : Martin Atkinson. Attendance : 32,328

Man of the Match (Worth an extra two Fantasy League points) Robert Green (WEST HAM) 8 Refused to blink first in his duel with Jermain Defoe.

Villain of the Match Armand Traore (POMPEY) 5 Umpteen chances to deliver a telling cross... and he wasted the lot.

Anorak This was West Ham's first cleansheet of the season having conceded 22 goals in the league

NEXT THREE GAMES

WEST HAM
Sunday: Sunderland (a) Prem
Mon Dec 1: Liverpool (a) Prem
Mon Dec 8: Spurs (h) Prem

PORTSMOUTH
Saturday: Hull (h) Prem
Thur Nov 27: AC Milan (h) UEFA C
Sun Nov 30: Blackburn (h) Prem

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