Southampton the Premier League Club In Portsmouth FA Cup Clash

In yet another highly anticipated, hotly disputed South Coast derby, Portsmouth sealed a 4-1 victory of colossal magnitude over bitter rivals Southampton to provide, above anything, the vital finances required to survive.

Goals from Quincy Owusu-Abeyie (66 mins), Aruna Dindane (75 mins), Nadir Belhadj (82 mins) and Jamie O'Hara (85 mins) secured an epic win for Pompey at St. Mary's Stadium.

Prolific striker Rickie Lambert had equalised for the Saints in the 70th minute with an expertly placed header to level the scores at 1-1, but in the end it was not to be for the home side.

However, despite the incredibly flattering scoreline, it was the home side who actually looked the stronger team for the majority of the match.

Portsmouth are a Premier League club, but for 90 minutes down in the south of England, Southampton looked like the team with top-flight status.

After all, ahead of this match, it was the Saints who had the far more stable finances, were in a cup final at Wembley Stadium, had their striker as the league's top goalscorer, and had a much bigger stadium with far better quality facilities.

And on the pitch, Southampton created more chances and were able to dominate play for parts of the match.

Portsmouth got their act together towards the latter stages of the game by taking their chances (something the home side failed to do) and scoring four goals.

But for the majority of the game, until defensive lapses hit home very destructively, Southampton made Pompey seem like the League One club with their confident passing play, good aerial ability and robust, calm and composed tackling.

This was vindicated in the statistics, as the Saints had three more shots on target than Portsmouth and had four more shots on goal than Pompey overall.

They also put in more tackles than the visitors and had a higher territorial advantage, as well as having one fewer yellow cards issued than the away team.

The Portsmouth in the last stages of the game was the team that should've been there from the start.

For almost 65 minutes, a team with two Algerian internationals heading to the World Cup (Nadir Belhadj and Hassan Yebda, the latter on loan from SL Benfica), a Euro 2004 winner, a striker on £80,000 a week, and a further five full internationals (with the likes of England and France amongst others) should have theoretically demolished their opponents.

Instead, it was a fortuitous win for the cash-strapped club, who got through to the quarterfinals of the FA Cup despite failing to fully represent the quality of what they are meant to be, a Premier League club.

In any case, in a famous, entertaining, colossal South Coast derby, the 4,000 Pompey fans in a sell out 31,385 crowd finally have something to cheer about.

They've taken the bragging rights on England's south coast and have seen Portsmouth Football Club live to see another day, with a £650,000+ cash injection giving the club the strength required to survive.

Wembley awaits for Southampton in the Johnstone's Paint Trophy Final. Could the greatest stadium in England play host to Portsmouth in the world's greatest domestic cup competition in football, the FA Cup?