We might as well hold the end of season awards do this week.
I do think the number of games has taken it's toll on us.
Portsmouth are still in the FA Cup and the tinpot, and if anything they’re getting stronger as time goes on. I don’t subscribe to this notion of playing too many games - the only teams that seem to bring it up are the ones struggling or stumbling. It’s never the ones going great guns who seem to go, “Cor, we aren’t half tired though!”
In 15/16 we played 59 games - 46 in League Two, 5 in the FA Cup, 2 in the EFL Cup and 6 in the EFL Trophy.
In 16/17 we played 62 games - 46 in League One, 6 in the FA Cup, 2 in the EFL Cup, and 8 in the EFL Trophy.
In 17/18 we played 54 games - 46 in League One, 1 in the FA Cup, 1 in the EFL Cup, and 6 in the EFL Trophy. (
This was comfortably our shortest season in recent memory - thanks again Pep)
In 18/19 we played 59 games - 46 in League One, 4 in the FA Cup, 3 in the EFL Cup, and 6 in the EFL Trophy.
We now know that in 19/20, based on the assumption that the playoffs don’t happen one way or the other, we will play 58 games - 44 in the league, 5 in the FA Cup, 5 in the EFL Cup and 4 in the EFL Trophy.
Even if we
were to make it into the playoffs and in turn advance to the final, the 61 games we would end up playing isn’t even the most games we would’ve played in a season since returning to League One in 2016. If we
don’t make it to the playoffs, we won’t even play as many games as we did last season, let alone any of the others. We are playing no more fixtures this season than we’ve played almost every season for the last half a decade, nor is this the smallest amount of players we’ve had to make do with in the process.
At this level, when even if you lost every single game you played you’d reach 50 matches in a season, everyone is in the same boat. Everybody is tired, everybody gets injuries, everybody thinks they’re a couple of players light - it’s the same for nearly everyone.