Duncan Barkes

We haven't given him a huge amount of minutes recently and we live with that.

When you strip everything back, three goals, a number of starts, a number of appearances, I was pretty positive about the way things were going for him.

There's obviously an expectation for him from his own perspective to come in and play, but, as a young lad in a side which isn't firing at the top of the league, I thought he had a really really good impact.

In that short time he had a good spell at Pompey.

You can talk about physicality, but I just think he was a different profile, still a young lad, not the biggest anyway, and brought different qualities to the side.

That Charlton game was a good indicator of the level, and where maybe out of possession it was a difficult game for him, but he popped up with the winner because he's got so much quality.

His best performances were probably off the left, instead he subsequently featured on the right wing on two occasions, against Middlesbrough when he scored, he scored against Watford, he had the contribution against Leicester as well away from home, so he was better on the left-hand side.

I don't know, if John Massino had a pound for every time he was asked about injuries, I reckon we could afford Mbappé.

But there is something going on, and John is right to point out that it's a mystery, and he's right to point out that it's not happening to just us, it's happening up and down the country.

Although there are no stats available to clarify this, my guess is that we are almost worse off than anybody else with injuries, maybe the worst off.

for injuries in all four divisions.

I don't know.

The numbers are difficult to collate, but it's a widespread problem.

And it's possible that at some point in the future, somebody will rumble what it is that everybody's not quite getting right.

It could be the quantity of fixtures.

It could be the intensity of the game now that we all play the press.

Could be the expectations of fitness, which is very high now on professional footballers to run and run and run.

The ground they cover is now monitored to within half an inch and they're expected to put in a payload, put in a shift of getting around the pitch.

All of these things and then fast accelerations and twisting and turning, all putting pressure on muscles and ligaments and joints.

I remember going to a centenary match, so it would have been 1998, Pompey's 100th.