Duncan Barkes

That's what artificial intelligence has to say.

If you can stomach it, this is what real intelligence, if I dare pass myself off as that, has to say.

And it's just to say that John Messina knows his way around the FA.

He also understands intelligence.

the corridors of power at the EFL and also FIFA.

That's why for him, if not for Pompey, the sky's the limit.

Yeah, it is interesting, isn't it, that they might be grooming Farrell to be a player who can play in two positions, maybe more, but a full-back who can also play at centre-half.

Williams, of course, over on the right.

We forget about him.

He played for the first part of...

Was it last season or this season?

I can't remember.

At centre-back, which is what he says is a position he can play in, as well as being a right-back.

And we brought him into the club with that knowledge.

And it was one of his many credentials that he brought.

And we now know that Connor Ogilvie, besides being, we say, one of the best left-backs in the Championship, surely, is also an extremely competent centre-back.

So we now have in that versatility all sorts of options for covering for positions where players are injured and we might not have a specialist right back.

And back in the good old days, if your right back was injured and your reserve right back was injured, you were, you know, not to put it mildly, screwed.

But what John Messina was working towards is a situation whereby he has at his disposal a bunch of players who can play in a number of positions, thus covering himself, or at least covering himself as best he can, against the injuries, the numerous injuries, the unacceptable level of injuries that are taking place and damaging the campaigns of so many sides, particularly in the Championship.

We still don't know why.