Jamo on the table again

Being at a game - especially an away one - you rarely, if ever, get much indication of who is in and who is not until you take your seat and see the players run out onto the pitch.

As I usually arrive in my seat just before kick-off, you cannot miss out on drinking time, I was very surprised to be greeted by the back of Jamie Ashdown in the Pompey goal, that was until ends were changed after the toss and he moved down the other end...

It was not until I got home last night that I was able to find out that David James had, and as Paul Hart put it when telling sky sports: 'pulled a calf muscle warming up.'

So, James will be out for around 3-weeks according to Hart then?

That rules him out of the Manyoo game this weekend, Villa in the league cup and I would imagine Burnley on December 5th?

All of which is of course a setback for us. All the more as Ashdown himself was clearly carrying an injury - you could see him visible stretching a lot in the 2nd half, and if that was not enough of an indicator the fact that Antti Niemi was warming up during half time and for a good percentage of the 2nd half was, as when do you ever see a keeper going through that sort of warm-up eh...

James continues to insist that injuries are not a problem for him, and these have 'nothing to do with age'.

Whilst you cannot fault James' physical fitness time does catch up on you and you do tend to find that the older you get the more niggling injuries you pick up, and once these start you tend to see more and more of them - as we have started to with James. It is sad, but true really.

I seriously do hope that it is not 'father times' starting to catch up with Jamo, but you do have to start thinking that maybe it is?

In which case, for me, ensuring Asmir Begovic is assured that he really does have a long-term future with Pompey, and moving to Ipswich should not happen, is something I think we need to do, and fast.

Whilst it is 'too early to say' you also have to start thinking will he really be in the shape to be England's keeper at the world cup? Although of course him being in shape to be our keeper is the priority at the moment...

PLAY UP POMPEY!

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