Duncan Barkes

I think Chapa's performance on Saturday sums up where he's at.

Defensively he was superb, led the press really well, was very very tenacious in everything he did, we've been making sure we focus on in possession as well just having a bit more of that quality we know he's got.

It has been very different for him, he's been playing in an extremely dominant Ipswich side at the level and we've asked him to do different things.

But we know he's got that, we have seen it against a lot of sides this season, particularly against West Brom and thought he might kick on after that.

Connor deserves that against Middlesbrough for his work rate and sticking at it.

Probably, by his own admission, he's not been in the form that he'd like to be.

So that was brilliant for him to do that on Saturday.

We lose something when we take him out of the side and that has been my belief for a number of weeks now.

We obviously took him out of the side at QPR when we lost 6-1.

We took him out at Birmingham where we lost 4-0, at Bristol City when we lost 5-0.

I am not saying it is all chappers but he's a very very good leader and has experience at the level.

Where we want more from him, and we probably want a few more goals and assists, he gives us a huge amount in everything else he does.

We had a lot of soul searching to do post QPR particularly because we thought we played very well for that block of 6 games previous, when it just wouldn't go into the back of the net or we'd been a bit unlucky here and there.

Considering how difficult it was to lose 6-1 away from home at QPR when we had a lot of promise going into the game, the reaction from the boys has been superb.

Middlesbrough nil Pompey one Middlesbrough nil Pompey one oh you know you sometimes meet those people who don't like sport and you don't really bother to have a conversation with them because they've got nothing to talk about

You know, if a bloke comes round to fix your drain, you very quickly find out what his team is.

Spurs, in the case of the bloke who came round to sort out our drain.

So the conversation flew.

It was magnificent.

He fixed the drain.