Duncan Barkes

And now he has reached the point where a goal against Reading.

OK, it was only the Carabao Cup, but he's still got to tuck it away.

A first team appearance as a sub for the first team playing for Pompey means that he's definitely going in the right direction.

Is it 14 goals in 18 games for Moneyfields?

He's a proper prospect, and we've now got quite a few prospects coming through, young players, young players who are starting to turn into proper assets, people who could make the first team, you just never know, but who will have an on-sale value, a sell-on value in the not-too-distant future if indeed they haven't already got it.

So welcome to him.

And we're looking forward to seeing him maybe starting a game sometimes towards the end of the season, if perhaps touch wood, luckily, well, not necessarily luckily, by dint of skill, Pompey find themselves safe from relegation.

He certainly put in a good shift, didn't he, Zach Swanson?

And playing out of position.

I'm reminded that during the recent Ashes test series, which we don't talk about a great deal because we've got far too many Aussies in the changing room for conversations about the cricket to have been anything other than painful.

I hope they didn't rub it in.

But on the opening day of I think it was the second might have been the third test.

Australia's one of Australia's opening bats.

batters uh called in sick and this was only about half an hour before the start of the match so they got together in the dressing room and the australian coach said anybody want to open and travis head who you came to really like and admire the way he bats and the way he is stuck his hand up straight away and went how hard can it be hey

That's such a good attitude.

And it looks as though Swanson's got a little bit of that attitude.

He'll play anywhere for the club that he now states, and I tend to believe it, don't you?

He absolutely loves.

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A number of players could be poised to depart cash-strapped Sheffield Wednesday before the end of the month, with the Owls' situation continuing to bleaken both on and off the pitch.