Duncan Barkes

Now, I tuned into the BBC at half-time to see what was being said, and somebody had sent in

A text saying that Schmidt was kicking the ball long too often.

Well, he wasn't.

He hardly ever did.

I don't know what game that bloke was watching.

He wasn't kicking the ball long.

He kicked it once or twice long because Blackburn...

worked out that he couldn't kick it long because he had four forwards all of whom were five foot six there's no point going long when you your guys are a foot shorter than half the other team so he was looking for the short ball out of out of the penalty area when he had it and generally speaking he worked it well our two full backs went wide and somebody would then come forward

In the middle, one of our midfield players would come back towards him in the middle of the pitch and he'd often get the ball and then would know that one or both of the full-backs were on for a pass so it would go square out to them.

And that's clearly a training ground thing and it was very successful.

It meant we kept the ball.

When Schmidt did knock it long for variety to keep them on their toes, we didn't get it.

And often we didn't pick up their header.

So they would get their head on the ball first when the ball had travelled 60 yards.

And then they'd get their hands, or their feet rather, on the ball when it was headed forward by the Blackburn defence.

Boett scored the most fantastically textbook perfect winning goal.

And didn't he enjoy it?

And shouldn't he enjoy it?

Poor lad, the weight that he had doing nothing for a year.

because of an innocuous incident on the training ground with nobody around him and he stuck it out and he's beginning to show what a prospect he is let's remember that he's not only a good player he's a prospect for the future and that header was perfect I've looked at it again and again nobody clears a path for him he isn't being overly protected by the rest of the Pompey players which is what often happens