Duncan Barkes

But we will hope that Shaughnessy is back sooner rather than later.

And if there is a later, that it's not like the end of the season, please.

Although, just as a little footnote to that, didn't Conor Ogilvie play well in Shaughnessy's role against Watford?

He really, really, really shone.

Interesting that the tidbit about a fan punching a police horse at the last meeting in Portsmouth between these two teams seems to stick in everybody's mind.

The police themselves, understandably.

Journalists, again, understandably.

But he said something very interesting.

did Chief Superintendent Dobbs, was it?

That he's hoping that there are going to be goals, because when there are goals, and it's been a good spectacle, as he called it, there's less likely to be any trouble.

He also says that it's harder to police Portsmouth versus Southampton at Portsmouth than it is to police Southampton-Portsmouth together.

in Southampton because, he says, of all the houses.

He doesn't expand on that.

I don't think he needs to.

I think we can kind of guess what he's driving at there.

The fact that it's all cramped and tight and difficult for numbers of police to collect as numbers of police, I guess.

It's a bit of a maze around Fratton Park.

So there's that aspect to the game, which will be borne in mind and will be picked on by journalists.

You can bet that the evening news, not just across the South, but nationally, if there is anything, will pick up on it.

I have to say this, and I don't judge journalists harshly, quite eagerly by newsrooms, because on a Sunday, there's not a lot going on.