Duncan Barkes

Against Jojo, he's very young.

And he may never have played in a game that had the importance or the setting of Middlesbrough.

So, glad it's not my decision.

I bet you're glad it's not yours.

Although, like me, I bet you've got your own view.

We'll find out at two o'clock, isn't it?

Or these days, something a bit before two o'clock they put out the team at Pompey.

A bit before the hour.

It used to be dead on an hour before kick-off.

we'd get the team news two or three minutes after the actual striking of the hour, 58 minutes before kick-off it used to come through.

Now it's available sometimes an hour and a quarter before, so you've just got to keep checking your phone.

Football news agency The 72 regularly like to try their hand at predicting the outcome of Pompey games.

It's a tricky business and they rarely get things right.

Let's hope they're wrong this time round.

The 72 there with some predictable predictions.

Obviously, in the build up to a game like this, both sides in the days leading up to it and on the morning of the game and just before they go out onto the pitch, their minds are full of the significance of the game and the way in which they're going to play their part in the game.

And at half-time as well, the focus returns to the situation that we're in and the scores of the other games that are significant in the promotion and the relegation battles.

And after the game, of course, the analysis and everything once again returns to the position, the situation, the status, what the table looks like after that result for both teams.

But in the heat of battle...

When you're actually out there on the pitch, cheered on or not by tens of thousands of people, and the rush of adrenaline that you get from playing in a professional football game, at the speed that the championship is played at, there's really no time to reflect on wider issues.