Duncan Barkes

And yes, you can get fancy with a throw-in, and Marlon Pack's long throw used to be a potent weapon in League One, doesn't seem to be quite so dangerous to the opposition in the Championship.

And without Shaughnessy, who is the man for getting up to attacking corners, we're a little bit impotent when we're taking a corner.

And we need to make sure that he is the man who is marking the opposition's main man at corners.

So we need to protect him from being blocked off from tackling, marking, jumping up with their target man at corners.

That makes it sound simple, doesn't it?

I am 99% certain that there is far more to it than that.

And it is in good hands with the people at Portsmouth.

But at the moment...

Nice try but no cigar.

We could be heading towards a very healthy situation at the end of this season when Toby Stewart comes back and one or two of our men in green shirts or sometimes they wear yellow don't they are definitely looking over their shoulder because the hopes and plans are that Toby Stewart

is going to make himself competitive for the number one slot almost on arrival, in which case this loan arrangement that Pompey have had with St Johnson will turn out to be one of the most successful loans I can ever remember a Pompey player going out on and coming back possibly the fully-fledged article.

Anyway, all these friends, they were all patronising me about my team, our team, after Sunday's game.

Pompey gave them a wake-up call was the phrase I heard most used.

There's not much you can come back with.

The fact is the gulf between Championship and Premiership is huge and exaggerated by us playing the side most likely to win that Premiership.

But

Like I reckon most of you, after smiling weakly through the patronising praise, I was pleased and relieved at the way we took a 4-1 beating.

First because we scored, and we scored at a good time.

And not only did we score, but it was a well-pressed, well-worked goal of quality.

And to score early on like that lifted everybody, you could tell.