John Massino

John Massino is asked when and for how long he plans on playing Conor Shaughnessy over this period of time when we've got quite a glut of games.

And is he in any way lured into the idea of saving him for the Oxford game?

The dilemma of when to play Shaughnessy and for how long is one of the reasons why we pay our manager a good wage.

Because it's a decision that I suspect none of us would really like to have to actually make.

Obviously Shaughnessy himself is going to be in on the plan there and the medics as well.

And we also have to look at the cover that we have for Shaughnessy.

If John Messina decides not to start him against Norwich, but to save him for the Oxford game, have him on the bench perhaps in case we're 1-0 up with 20 minutes to go at Norwich and we decide that we'll take those three points and so we'll shore up our defence by bringing him on.

But what we don't want to do is risk him getting crocked because he's a player who looks as though he's going to be out for two weeks and it turns into six months.

As John Messina has been underlining quite a lot over the last few days.

He has players who look as though they're... A perfect example, of course, is Murphy, who's going to be out for a couple of games.

Then it turns into the rest of the season.

So he's got to make, you know, real, real tight decisions about...

based on probably a lot of guesswork as well as everything else so it will be especially interesting to see what the starting lineup is when we get the team sheets for the Norwich game and just have a look at whether or not he's going to risk Shaughnessy which if he does that means that he is going for something from Norwich which will be a brave thing to do

Because it is, isn't it?

Whether he likes it or not, whether he says so or not, it's all about Oxford, isn't it?

What are Steve Bone's predictions for the Norwich game?

one at Norwich but I do think because we won't speak again before Monday I do think we're going to turn that around and get everything firing and we're going to beat Oxford quite convincingly and you can catch a full half hour of Steve on the Pompey Sound podcast if you go to your podcast provider and put in Pompey Sound that you'll find our most recent podcasts listed and you want the one that starts with the word Steve

Thank you very much.

and said that they didn't think it was fair that this manager might have an opportunity to wear out three of their players, making them more vulnerable to poor results as they head towards hopefully surviving in the championship from their point of view this season.

What's John Massino got to say?