Bone Idle: Provisional Portsmouth squad and training session needed before my team of decade is revealed

If you look up ‘can of worms’ on Google images you’ll see a picture of my esteemed colleague Neil Allen writing out his Pompey team of the decade, which you can see in this weekend's News and at portsmouth.co.uk
Former Pompey striker Izale McLeodFormer Pompey striker Izale McLeod
Former Pompey striker Izale McLeod

In his position as the paper’s chief Pompey correspondent, he can’t win. Everyone will have a different opinion as to who should be in the team of the top players to have worn the royal blue between 2010 and now.

It’s different for me – a) because far fewer people will read mine, and b) because my team will be much better.

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I’m not sure how long Neil took to form his team, but I’m not going to be rushed.

I’m treating this like me being England manager and planning my squad for the Euro 2020 finals.

I’ve started by naming a training squad of 38 who I shall cast my eye over during a series of intensive training sessions at Roko followed by a run up Portsdown Hill.

I’m selecting four goalies – Stephen Henderson, Craig MacGillivray, David Forde and the fella from Strictly Come Dancing.

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Full-backs? Joel Ward, Greg Halford, Gareth Evans, Enda Stevens and Nadir Belhadj are all in.

Centre-halves are Matt Clarke, Jack Whatmough, Christian Burgess, Ricardo Rocha, Jason Pearce and Adam Webster.

Midfielders will be selected from Jamie O’Hara, David Norris, Richard Hughes, Ben Close, Michael Doyle, Gary Roberts, Danny Rose, Ben Thompson, Erik Huseklepp and Kevin Prince-Boateng.

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Wingers? Kyle Bennett, Ricky Holmes, Ronan Curtis, Matt Ritchie, Ronan Curtis, Jed Wallace, Liam Lawrence, Jamal Lowe and John Utaka. Strikers: Brett Pitman, Izale McLeod, Dave Nugent, Benjani.

If the above can assemble off Copnor Road on Monday morning, that’d be grand. Whittling down to follow!