TONIGHT'S ACTION ..........

My strongest ideas this evening are in Spain, but I will keep those for subscribers to the email service, elsewhere .....

Portsmouth have horrendous problems ahead of the Carling Cup tie with Chelsea, with Jermaine Defoe, Papa Boupa Diop, Sean Davis, Lassana Diarra, David Nugent and Sol Campbell all out injured, so Kanu and Richard Hughes will start.Confidence must be very low following the thumping administered by Manchester City at the weekend and if the Blues are fully motivated and this is where we can only guess, they should win easily enough. They will be without Deco, Essien and Carvalho for sure, the last named has covered for Terry's lack of pace time and time again, he will be missed and it is enough to just about put me off.

ITALY

SERIE A

NAPOLI - PALERMO

Napoli continue to impress me, they have beaten Fiorentina and Benfica at home and taken away points at Roma and Udinese, both with ten men on the pitch. They have a very decent squad now, which allows some rotation and Cannarvaro, Contini, Hamsik, Maggio and Denis, who all played at Roma, which was a fantastic performance, where, after the red card they took the game to one of the best sides in Italy, return to the side.

Palermo have won their last two, but both were at home and the Roma win was against a side distracted by an upcoming Champions League fixture. In their only away start, they were comprehensively beaten at Udinese and will be without two strikers in Budan and Miccoli ( who scored twice in the Roma game). Home win.

5.5 points Napoli -1/2 ball 2.08 +

REGGINA - AC MILAN

Milan got the "monkey off their back" with the big win, over the previously unbeaten Lazio on Sunday night. They have to build on that tonight, especially with the Milan derby at the weekend, the prospect of potentially trailing Inter by ten points before the end of September, is too awful to contemplate and heads would roll !

Reggina have struggled for possession in all starts to date and were poor in the weekend defeat to Roma. As you might expect , Milan have dominated recent meetings, winning 7 of the last 8, scoring three or more, on four occasions. With Kaka , Shevchenko, Pato and Ronaldinho all vying for starting places, it is difficult to see them being any less prolific against a team that is going to have a season long battle to survive.

6 points Milan -1 ball 2.06 asian line.

Good Luck.