Gaffer: Forget the Championship - it's now who should Portsmouth keep for League One

Gaffer for a Day, Paul Fletcher, aged 25 from Fratton, gives his opinion on Pompey’s 3-1 defeat at Swindon...
Gaffer for a Day, Paul Fletcher, has not been impressed with John Marquis this season. Picture: Jason Brown/ProSportsImagesGaffer for a Day, Paul Fletcher, has not been impressed with John Marquis this season. Picture: Jason Brown/ProSportsImages
Gaffer for a Day, Paul Fletcher, has not been impressed with John Marquis this season. Picture: Jason Brown/ProSportsImages

I know it's tough, but did anyone impress?

Apart from Ronan Curtis it’s pretty hard to pinpoint any player who stood out against Swindon.

Curtis had the work-rate, chased everything, and got the goal his play deserved. A lot of his team-mates didn’t put their heart into it.

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There’s more passion on the sidelines than from that starting XI – and that’s the worst pain of all.

And it had to be Brett Pitman, didn’t it.

You mentioned Brett Pitman, it was inevitable wasn’t it?

There isn’t a goalscorer in that Pompey team – but Swindon had someone who we let leave in the summer.

I was gutted when we got rid of Pitman. I’m a big fan. Give him the ball and he will put it into the net.

Everyone moaned that he didn’t run around enough, but Pitman knows where the goal is.

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If we still had him up front, we’d have won recent games which we’ve lost or drawn.

Pitman may not be the quickest, but give him a chance and he will convert it, as we saw on Tuesday night. Instead we’ve got John Marquis.

I can sense you getting more and more angry here!

I have defended Marquis so much during the last two seasons, but I just don’t think he’s good enough.

Sometimes you have discussions over which of these players would be good enough should Pompey reach the Championship. Now it’s who you would keep for another year in League One.

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On paper, we have a very, very good side. The problem is we have Marquis up front, who doesn’t know where the goal is.

He runs and runs and goes nowhere. It’s always running into dead space.

Can the Cowleys get him firing next season? I just don’t know.

How do you see the left-back situation?

We are massively missing Lee Brown – and not many would have said that at the start of the season.

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He’s a leader, a Steady Eddie, and very passionate about the club. We are desperately missing him at left-back.

Instead we have Charlie Daniels, who has been shocking. When he joined in January, I thought it would be a good signing, but he’s been very, very poor.

Daniels has to be dropped. Could we put James Bolton there? Perhaps Rasmus Nicolaisen, with Bolton at centre-half? What about Callum Johnson.

We have the defensive options – but please no more Charlie Daniels.

Craig MacGillivray 7

Callum Johnson 6

Sean Raggett 6

Rasmus Nicolaisen 5

Charlie Daniels 3

Tom Naylor 6

Ben Close 6

Marcus Harness 6

Ryan Williams 6

Ronan Curtis 7

John Marquis 5

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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