Duncan Barkes

Because one of the things that works in football, and we all know it, that works in football really well, is when there are two or more players vying for the starting shirt.

and having three or four or five wide players battling it out to get the starting seven or eleven shirts means that everybody's game is going to be as sharp as it possibly can be but when you're reduced to one and a half

wide players, wide attacking players.

It's not that complacency creeps in.

It's just that you don't have the option of looking at the way in which a fullback during the game is either managing to contain a Pompey attacker or failing to contain a Pompey attacker and then making adjustments on the pitch using your substitutions appropriately.

So John Messina is now getting his options and he's also getting competition rewards.

for players who spend the game with their heels on the touchline.

John Massinio admits there's no guarantee Ebu Adams will play for Pompey again this season, though the Blues boss is still holding out hope that the influential midfielder could return for the Leicester game on April 18.

The popular January signing damaged his MCL late in the crushing 6-1 defeat at QPR, and was visibly distraught after the final whistle.

According to Massinio, that emotional reaction had the club fearing the worst, as they scrapped for their Championship lives.

While the diagnosis was thankfully more encouraging than first feared, Adams is still expected to miss the next four games, and Massinio is cautious about promising a definite return date.

He says when you saw a reaction from him like that, I feared the worst.

I think Ebu will be back this season, we are hopeful he will be back for the Leicester game.

But you just don't know, I've had so many this season.

We were talking in December about Josh Murphy being a couple of weeks away, and obviously that one hasn't worked out particularly well he explained.

There have been others where injuries have dragged on.

Shocks last season dragged on and on and on, and a two-week injury turned into a six-month injury.

So I'm hopeful, but I'm just not certain of anything until they are back out on the grass.

Losing Adams even for a few games is a major blow.

He quickly became a Fratton Park favourite, after his bargain £500,000 move from Derby, bringing a powerful, energetic presence to the midfield.