Gaffer: Plymouth are making Portsmouth game out to be huge – as per usual

Plymouth are making this out to be a huge game as they always do down there.

They have been struggling all year but have just started their ‘Let’s get on a run after Christmas’  streak.

Saturday is always about the Dockyard Derby to them.

I hate that term but for Plymouth it’s bragging rights.

Some of the comments Derek Adams comes out with will be interesting depending how the game goes.

We need to win every game we can but if you gave me a point now then I’d take it.

Pompey had such a settled side in the first half of the season.

Suddenly we lost some of the players like Ben Thompson and the team almost had a second nature with each other. 

Every team goes through a bad run, though. It's just coincided with the loan players returning to their parent clubs.

Oli Hawkins was also massive for us and vital for the system we played.

When you see Brett Pitman in that same role, he couldn’t hold the ball up.

We missed Hawkins a lot through injury, the loan players went back and players coming into the side weren’t quite up to it, so we hit a bad patch.

But every team will have one. Luton will have one – hopefully it starts on Saturday.

My gut feeling is Pompey will finish in the play-offs and then it’s a lottery.

If we get our form back in the next few weeks then we can earn automatic promotion.

It’s a very tight league and there will be two cracking semi-finals depending on which club finishes in the play-offs. 

For the trip to Home Park, I think Anton Walkes might be used in that Tom Naylor role.

I have a sneaky feeling Walkes will play in front of the back four.

I’d also keep Hawkins up front. Having seen Omar Bogle at Luton and against Doncaster, he seems better coming off the bench and making an impact.

Mark’s Pompey line-up (4-2-3-1): Craig MacGillivray, Nathan Thompson, Christian Burgess, Matt Clarke, Lee Brown, Anton Walkes, Bryn Morris, Jamal Lowe, Gareth Evans, Ronan Curtis, OIi Hawkins