Duncan Barkes

to keep his feet in those moments as he tried to defend a touchline ball.

I felt how unfortunate it was that he was pressed into action at that level so early in his recovery from previous hamstring problems.

I may be being unfair on Pompey's backroom staff, and I am well aware of the length of an injury list we have and the numbers we needed to come off the bench to help the whole squad survive a game in which Arsenal never stopped pressing, coming at us.

But for Franco Ume, that may be another huge career step.

And I will feel sorry for the lad.

But we'll see.

I don't know any detail yet about his injury.

Overall, in spite of the scoreline, Pompey came out of Sunday with some pride and hope for the future.

Colby Bishop scored.

So important that.

And we must hope the knock he was suffering from at the very end of the game wasn't too serious.

Terry Devlin had a wonderful game.

And not far behind him was Zach Swanson against his old club and Andrei Segachich, for whom

The experience must have been beneficial.

Regan Poole's defensive work was typically heartening, and it was great to see Connor Ogilvie back on the part, wasn't it?

We have more important games to come, Sounders, starting on Saturday.

But we should take some heart from our 4-1 thumping.

And I've never said that before.

Play up, Pompey.

So Pompey won Arsenal 4.