How happy are you with York's season so far and would you now be disappointed to miss out on the play-offs?
Very happy, we're more or less safe months in advance of the climax of the season and whilst I really want to make them, if we missed out I'd be encouraged about next season. It's in our hands to have a strong finish we just have to keep picking up points and see where it takes us, if we finished below 12th now I would be pretty disappointed though, we need to keep going to attract players in the summer.
What have been the main reasons for your massive upturn in form?
Nigel Worthington. I was seriously worried about where we were going in the first half of the season, that terrible winless run (think it was one win in 17 games at one point) made me feel as though the season was heading to another disaster like under Mills but credit to him, he makes errors, but he seems to spot them and then fix them too instead of persevering through stubbornness.
In terms of players, Fletcher has been a huge part of our movement upwards, but I have to give credit to McCombe, Penn and Lowe, they've tightened us up and made us tough to break down, which means our trouble scoring from time to time has been covered, now the odd goal here and there wins us games.
What are the biggest weaknesses in this current York side?
Lack of goals has been our weakness all season, Fletcher has an eye for goal and Coulson has chipped in plus Jarvis isn't too bad but Bowman is still settling in, we may have the odd romp but normally we score the odd goal, if we concede a few I'd worry about our ability to claw back but our biggest strength now is how solid we are defensively.
The Portsmouth squad has undergone much change since the 4-2 loss at Bootham Crescent. Are there any players in there that give you cause for concern?
Jake Jervis has a semi decent goals to game ratio at first glance so he may cause a couple of problems and so does Ryan Taylor, they could potentially cause headaches. Otherwise not too many, although that isn't to say you are incapable of causing us issues, we are just genuinely quite solid and you don't seem to have any out and out scorers to unlock our backline. Your best chances are probably getting some pace between our centre backs.
What kind of match are you expecting at Fratton Park?
A tense one, we're on a good run and we're now expected to do the damage, people are noticing us when before we were just going about our business and picking up the points. You're also desperate for points, it could be a dull affair with neither side taking too many risks, a draw or a win for either side by a small margin I think.
Given the respective form of both teams, surely you will fancy your chances against shot-shy Portsmouth?
I think we have it in us to win, I wouldn't look past us and have us down as favourites for sure, but at some point the run will hit a blip and we need to see how we respond to that. I don't think you'll beat us by a wide margin but it's not impossible, we were pretty poor up front when we were struggling too and have, to a degree, turned that around. A draw could be a decent result all things considered.
Predict the outcome of the game.
Heart says 2-0, head says 1-1.