Chapter 1: What are the latest transfer rumors for Portsmouth FC?
The latest Pompey news updates every day from the Pompey Sound News Desk. To the frustration of Pompey-speaking fans the world over, transfer rumours and gossip continue to bounce off the walls, but as yet Pompey have nothing concrete to report.
Versatile midfielder-stroke defender Paddy McNair, a Middlesbrough stalwart for many years, is given a glowing commendation by his former boss Michael Carrick. Journalists have been linking him with a free move from the United States to either Pompey or Oxford United, and he's presumably in talks which won't be over until the fat lady sings.
One player who won't be coming to Fratton Park is Gambier international Abdouli Mane, who currently plays in Sweden for Mialby. The price tag of 4.5 million is almost certainly too rich for the South Coaster's blood, whereas Deep Pocket's Birmingham City can treat it as a cough and a spit.
Chapter 2: Who is Lewis Comas and why is he a potential signing for Pompey?
One name that so far has come in under the radar is 20-year-old Lewis Comas, a highly rated Welsh winger previously on loan with Birmingham, but largely consigned to the bench until he recently made a name for himself with a start and a big goal signalling his arrival as a Championship player.
His availability to Pompey is dependent on him concluding his loan spell with Birmingham, and finding a new loan club to compete for a starting place, and complete his season. With Pompey currently posting no less than four wide attackers injured, Coomers could be lured to Fratton Park, with the certainty of starting plenty of games. John Massigno is asked about a date for Callum Lang's return,
Chapter 3: What updates are there on Callum Lang's injury recovery?
Lange is okay he's going to be four to six weeks from the time of injury so we're looking at at least three weeks into that. It's a different hamstring to the previous one. It doesn't make a difference to me it's still a hamstring I just want him back. It's the way Callum plays the intensity he plays at he's always going to be at risk.
We did make a real conscious effort to look after him we always do with all the players who are coming back from rehabilitation managing him back into it.
Chapter 4: How is Portsmouth FC addressing their injury crisis?
Maybe just with the load and the amount of games and the intensity of it was just one game too far. From a football medical standpoint, we are comfortable with the fact we have done everything we possibly can with Callum and he has looked as strong as he can. Sometimes these things do happen. There's sometimes nothing you can do about injuries, hence sides have got them up and down the country.
I don't know, if John Massino had a pound for every time he was asked about injuries, I reckon we could afford Mbappé. But there is something going on, and John is right to point out that it's a mystery, and he's right to point out that it's not happening to just us, it's happening up and down the country.
Although there are no stats available to clarify this, my guess is that we are almost worse off than anybody else with injuries, maybe the worst off. for injuries in all four divisions. I don't know. The numbers are difficult to collate, but it's a widespread problem. And it's possible that at some point in the future, somebody will rumble what it is that everybody's not quite getting right.
It could be the quantity of fixtures. It could be the intensity of the game now that we all play the press. Could be the expectations of fitness, which is very high now on professional footballers to run and run and run. The ground they cover is now monitored to within half an inch and they're expected to put in a payload, put in a shift of getting around the pitch.
Chapter 5: What are the statistics on Pompey's defensive struggles with set pieces?
All of these things and then fast accelerations and twisting and turning, all putting pressure on muscles and ligaments and joints. I remember going to a centenary match, so it would have been 1998, Pompey's 100th.
anniversary year and before a game about 10 to 3 of a Saturday afternoon they did a presentation of as many of the still living Pompey players who were around and could get there and they introduced them decade by decade so I think I'm right in saying that I don't think they were only from the 40s might have been and there were some from the 50s definitely quite a few from the 60s and the 70s
And they got out as many old heroes as they could. I think there was a cut-off time, was perhaps the 80s, because then obviously you're getting towards players who are still playing and therefore can't be there at Fratton on a Saturday afternoon. So I think it was from the...
40s through to and including the 90s and there was one thing that stands out in my memory very clearly the older players they almost sprinted out onto the pitch they look jaunty and fitting well but you get into the 60s and 70s and quite a few of those ex-pros had trouble walking out onto the pitch One or two of them even had to have sticks. And it was noticeable.
They formed a line in front of the director's box.
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Chapter 6: What did John Massigno learn from facing Arsenal's set-piece strategy?
And there were all those sticks in the middle. Players from the 60s and 70s. And it wasn't a mystery because the chap next to me simply said one word. He just went, cortisone. And he was right. And I remembered that. Back in the late 60s and early through the 70s, if somebody had an ailment, an injury, they would get a cortisone injection. I wasn't clear at the time what cortisone was.
I still don't know. I should because I'm damning it.
Chapter 7: How does Portsmouth handle set pieces during games?
But it, I think, was quietly identified as being a culprit. of some non-serviceable injury that developed with the overuse of this particular medication in order to guarantee a player being able to play, even though his body or one of his legs wasn't up to it. So I don't know what exactly Cortisone did. I'm going to go away and look it up now that I've mentioned it.
What I'm saying here is that it's quite possible that some aspect of the game and the way in which players are trained... and asked to play could have some responsibility for all these injuries. In which case we really have to get to the bottom of it, not just from the point of view of football, from just the point of view of humanity.
All these young men who are laid up for weeks and months on end. Goodness knows what it does to them mentally and physically. So hurry up, eggheads.
Let's get to the bottom of this one.
A cortisone injection delivers a powerful anti-inflammatory steroid directly into painful joints, muscles, or soft tissues to reduce swelling, inflammation, and pain, often mixed with a local anesthetic for immediate relief, providing temporary benefits for conditions like arthritis, tendonitis, and bursitis, though it treats symptoms, not the root cause, and has potential side effects, with usage typically limited due to risks like cartilage damage or infection.
There you are. I was about right, wasn't I? That is my memory of it as well, that certain risks were known, but the benefits they thought at the time outweighed the risks. I don't think it's used anymore, but there may be practices that seem perfectly good and healthy.
to the experts nowadays that in the not too distant future will be allowed to recede or even disappear from the training side of the game.
Writing for the BBC, Dan George attempts to unpick Pompey's alleged weakness when defending set pieces. Here's the gist of his article.
If there's one thing that's been Portsmouth's Achilles' heel this season, it's defending set-pieces.
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Chapter 8: What is the status of goalkeeper Toby Stewart's loan at St Johnstone?
That weakness was on full display in Sunday's 4-1 FA Cup loss to Arsenal, arguably the masters of the dead ball, as Pompey shipped three goals from corners, piling on the frustration and raising more questions about why they can't seem to get it right. the numbers are damning. Across all competitions this season, a staggering 19 of the 41 goals Portsmouth have conceded have come from set pieces.
That's 12 from corners, four from free kicks, one directly from a free kick, one from a throw-in and a penalty. With these goals coming so consistently, the pressure is mounting on the coaching staff. particularly on first-team coach Michael Doyle, who was brought in this summer, with a specific focus on set pieces.
So after another defeat where dead balls decided the outcome, what did head coach John Massigno learn from going up against the best in the business? Arsenal's delivery was excellent, as well as the way they attack the ball, and we didn't match them, Massigno told BBC Radio.
We were a little too static and not aggressive enough, whether that is something we can get out of the current players or if it's something we need to think about. Adding to the squad in January is a really good question. Set pieces are a part of the game so we have to be better at them, going into the league next week we have to be a lot better with it.
When setting up for corners, Pompey use a mix of zonal and man-to-man marking, with a small group of players protecting the goal while others track their individual assignments around the box. While there isn't one single recurring mistake behind the 12 corner goals they've let in, a few familiar problems keep cropping up.
Clever blocking routines from the opposition have caught Portsmouth out more than once, like with Norwich's first goal in August and QPR's equaliser at Fratton Park on Boxing Day. Against the Canaries, two Norwich players wedged themselves between Connor Shaughnessy and Andre Dizel, who were supposed to be marking Harry Darling.
This simple move parted the defenders and gave Darling a completely free header from the free kick. It was a similar story against QPR. Colby Bishop was initially marking Jimmy Dunn, but a teammate managed to run interference, getting between Bishop and his man. Dunn was able to slip away unmarked and head home the equaliser.
That was a summary of the piece by the BBC's Dan George. To see the whole thing, you need to go to the BBC website. There's very little there that you will learn that you didn't know before, although I suppose it's vaguely useful for us ordinary fan folk to be reminded that technically a throw-in is a set piece. And so is a penalty.
Anything that restarts the game after the game has been halted for whatever reason is a set piece. But I don't think any football fan counts throw-ins as set pieces in the same way as we count corners and free kicks just outside the box. Those are set pieces. And I've never heard a football fan refer to a penalty as a set piece.
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