Chapter 1: What is the latest team news for Pompey ahead of the match?
Here is the latest team news for Pompey, ahead of the match vs QPR. John Massigno continues to play his cards close to his chest, however he's come out and said that Josh Murphy is 50-50 to start the game.
The latest update on Murphy's injury, which is believed to be a slight strain of a hamstring, is that he felt it coming on shortly after the start of the second half against Derby and was taken off as a precaution.
The hamstring strain is a diagnosis that is somehow in conflict with the side of one of Pompey's physios, attending Murphy sitting on the ground, holding Murphy's foot, rather than addressing the location of a possible hamstring strain.
John Massino is growing famous for managing team news and injury updates in a way that keeps the opposition guessing, and his 50-50 claim of Portsmouth's most feared player could turn out to be another piece of leisure domain.
Elsewhere there is no further news on the exact date of a return for Shocknessy or Knight, although the understanding is that Berwood has recovered from turning his ankle over and Matthews is declaring himself fit for a full 90-minute service, even though the manager may feel that with the intensity of fixtures in the offing, he's one player who could benefit from a rest.
Marlon Pack continues to press for a starting place, but Dezel and now Kosnefsky are probably ahead of him in the pecking order. Up front if Murphy makes the starting line-up, the forward line should look the same as against Derby. Pompey's official preview of the QPR game reads thus.
The Premier League may have just a solitary match being played, but the tradition of Boxing Day football remains alive and well in the EFL. And Pompey will want to ensure there is still plenty of festive cheer when they welcome Queen's Park Rangers to Fratton Park, 3pm kick-off.
John Masseno's men can approach the contest with confidence, having ended a three-match winless run, by beating Blackburn and drawing at Derby before Christmas.
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Chapter 2: What is the status of Josh Murphy's injury and his chances to play?
But they come up against a side who have emerged triumphant in five of their past seven championship fixtures. They enjoyed an impressive 4-1 victory over Leicester on home soil in their most recent outing, ensuring it was a miserable return to Loftus Road for previous boss Martí Cifuentes.
His replacement Julien Stephane, who guided Rennes to Coupe de France glory in 2019, had a difficult start to life in London, with a 7-1 hammering at Coventry the undoubted lowlight. But Rangers have recovered in impressive fashion and currently sit in seventh position, just a single point outside the play-off positions.
Pompey's 2-1 victory in the capital was their first win last season, while goals from Josh Murphy and Matt Ritchie ensured the 2-1 scoreline was repeated when the sides met on the south coast back in February. Yeah, it's interesting. A winless run of three games is recorded and publicised like that. they have been winless in their last three games.
We're undefeated in our last two games, but it doesn't run off the tongue quite so easily. And also it's far less impressive than a winless run of three games is depressing. That's just the way of language and the way of football. But a lot of people are making a lot of the fact that QPR are rather on song.
And certainly the fact that they are just one place off the playoffs suggests that they've got a lot going for them. But we have also had something of a turnaround, for sure. Don't you think? Don't you agree? A lot of people are saying it. I think it's the case. Do you think it's the case? We are turning things around.
Doesn't mean to say we're going to come out head and shoulders above QPR on Friday, but it does mean that we're going to give them a better game than we would have done two or three or four weeks ago. That's for sure, isn't it? So, QPR, Friday, 3pm. Bring it on. John Massino is talking about Pompey's potential as a goal-scoring team.
We've got options in terms of backups to where we've been to Colby as that frontliner that won't be a priority of ours. It's just one of the areas we've been looking at constantly and will keep monitoring but we are certainly backing Colby to be able to re-find the goalscoring form that he has done previously in a Pompey shirt.
There have been promising signs in the last two games I think his performances have gotten a lot better as well so we are pleased with that. With forward players, they are always a bit more expensive than everyone else on the pitch, but that wouldn't necessarily be a prohibitive factor. We've got goals in the team, we know that.
Murph had seven last year, Colby 11, Lange 10, we definitely have goals in the side.
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Chapter 3: How has John Massino managed team news and injury updates?
Seggs has chipped in with four this season, he's our top scorer, so we've got goals in the side. I think we need to be better in attacking areas. We need to be a bit more creative. We need to be a bit more patient at times. We don't look at it and think we haven't got any goals in the squad. We just need to make sure that in certain areas of the pitch and certain situations, we do a lot better.
There is more enigma about the goal scorer in a team than the rest of the team put together. When I say enigma, there is a mystery about what he does or she does in the case of women's football, of course. There's that sudden moment when a goal happens. Sometimes they weren't expecting the ball. Sometimes they were hoping for the ball.
Sometimes the ball doesn't come quite where they wanted it to. Sometimes there's a person in their way that they've got to get rid of and then suddenly they discover that they can or can't do that. It's 90% of the things that goal scorers do don't come off. Otherwise, we'd have basketball scores and we don't. If they manage a goal and a half every three games, then they're a prolific goal scorer.
But that is still a very low success rate when you consider all the saves that a goalkeeper has to make and does. All the last-ditch tackles and tackles in midfield that defenders and central midfield players have to make and do and are successful in. They run around on the pitch doing what they're trying to do. Goal scorers run around the pitch doing what they do if they're lucky once a game.
Once every two games even is good enough. So the amount of disappointment that they have to carry through the 95 minutes is immense compared to the satisfaction that defenders and central midfield players achieve. It is an enigma. It's a psychological challenge. And it's a psychological challenge to the backroom staff, the coaching staff and the fans.
Because we don't know how to advise about a goal scorer who isn't quite scoring enough goals. And of course, the statistic is there for all to see. He, she or it has scored seven goals so far this season. They had 11 at this time last season. They're not firing on all cylinders. You can't argue with those statistics.
Defenders statistics are that much difficult to invoke but a goal scorer simple number of goals they score and John Massino has said the same thing he said himself that's how he judges strikers that's how he judges centre forwards on the number of goals that they score but how they manage to convert
A bleak period, a drought into a profuse period of hammering them in week after week, that is a complete mystery. I'm going to name drop. I once shared an office with another bloke at a television company, and that other bloke was the... the number one goal scorer in English football for certain of all time, maybe one of the ultimate goal scorers, Jimmy Greaves, who just knew how to do it.
And we were yakking away and one day I asked him the $64,000 question, Jim, what was going through your mind when a goal scoring opportunity presented itself? And he looked into the middle distance and went a bit milky eyed and he just went, Tom, I don't know. I didn't at the time. I never did afterwards. And I still don't know. So if you don't mind, I don't want to talk about it.
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Chapter 4: What are the recent performances and confidence levels of Pompey?
Portsmouth 0 QPR 2. Thanks, guys. We've said it on Pompey Sound before. There have been a number of predictable predictions regarding the outcome of future Pompey matches. And we remember with great clarity that both of their football experts, one same guy, one different guy from this week. predicted that Pompey would lose to Derby. So we're not going to set great store in their predictions.
But their overall comments seem fairly accurate. QPR, absolutely no pushovers, even away where their record isn't as good as at home. And they do have some live wires up front. But after...
Getting back to the team that can bite your legs, and I don't mean that in an illegal way, I mean a team that's got bite all over the pitch in every regard, means that we've got more than an outsider's chance of getting all three on Friday.