How do you assess the start to York's season?
In a manner of speaking, and as politely as I can, awful. Since the win over Northampton on the opening day we've not won a game and have been pretty woeful at times, its a massive disappointment after the encouragement under Nigel last season.
There are times that we have played quite well, but we just don't have the guile to keep goals out and it's what costs us. We don't score many either which is a recipe for disaster, we need our new strikers to start clicking but for a few reasons they haven't yet. Of course, it doesn't help that both Bowman and Cresswell have already had red cards for petty things! Which is bad as I barely remember us getting a red card at all in previous seasons.
Who have been your outstanding performers so far?
Very few, Ryan Jarvis, despite his reputation from ex-clubs, has put the effort in and really tries every match and has scored most of our goals so far this season. He's not brilliant and he has some pretty obvious flaws, but he seems to care and that can really make the difference for a fan sat watching pretty poor performances from players you expected more from.
It's really quite sad but apart from him, there's very, very little positive to say about the rest. The odd game some have been solid, but overall none of them have been up to scratch. Daniel Parslow, for all the abuse he's got over all the years he has been here, always puts his head in and tries his heart out when he plays, he seems to have gotten back into the fold, hopefully it rubs off on some others.
What are the biggest weaknesses in your team that Pompey could exploit on Saturday?
Our defence, they seem to lack the ability to communicate very well and are positionally weak. We'll keep a reasonable amount out but we will also gift you a couple of really easy chances and if you're on form up front, you could easily nick a few goals. Then our ineffective midfield will really make the difference as we struggle to score.
What do you make of the Portsmouth squad? Any players that you are particularly wary of?
Ageymang and Connolly, purely as they seem to be able to score and we could do with some really useless strikers playing against us! If you have players who will spring on errors, you've got a good chance of making us pay.
I will be interested to see how Craddock is these days after seeing him in the Conference at Luton, if he plays of course. Otherwise, I am quite interest just to see how the team in general blends and plays after such a long decline, especially as they look to be quite a young squad.
What is there to do in York for any Pompey fans staying the weekend or arriving early?
There are countless pubs and they're mostly all fantastic and really worth going into. If you head into the city centre there are a great deal of them to visit and they'll keep you entertained, the ones by the river are good if the weather's nice but really there's lots of choice which is good I think considering some other places where you're a bit stuck for where to go.
For those of you who are interested in history, there's a great deal of museums to visit, the Jorvik Centre, the York Castle Museum etc so there is plenty to see, althought granted I know most away days aren't built around heritage centres!
If you hang around after the match, have a peek at some of the restaurants and bars around the city, they're very good but they'll of course be quite busy on a night time.
What kind of match will we see at Bootham Crescent? Do York like to play tidy football or do they prefer the more direct style?
A lot of hoofing, sadly, with some attempts to play it but generally it'll be ineffectual. We have guys who should bully you but they simply won't, despite our height we're quite powderpuff in that respect!
I'd like to say it'll at least be an entertaining back and forth game, but I can't see that changing much.
Predict the outcome of the game.
2-1 Portsmouth. York will go 1-0 up but then errors will let you back in to pick up an away victory.