Surviving the international break? The good news is we've reached the halfway point, a point which itself seemed a long way off when the Blues trudged off the pitch after their last game at home to Blackburn.

Before we know it, well sort of before we know it, the south coast derby will be upon us and famine will be replaced by feast.

It's worth looking at how the schedule works out - for Pompey and the rest of the Championship and Premier League, that is - in this stop-start first half of the season, because it is very skewed and surely can't be good for anyone or anything - from a form point of view as well as a player welfare standpoint.

So, from when the competitive season kicked off on August 8, Pompey played eight games in 42 days - a fair number, as it goes, with few midweek matches (the loss to West Ham in the League Cup meant one fewer game for Pompey than many others played).

Now, the break means Pompey have no game in 21 days - nothing from September 20 to October 10 inclusive. Of course the players will train, but any coach will tell you that's not the same as playing a league or cup game. Even a behind-closed-doors friendly is more like a training session than a game.

And when Pompey return, starting at St Mary's on October 11, they play eight games in 28 days - with three out of the next four weeks containing a midweek fixture. In fact they start the next phase with three games in seven days, two away from home either side of a Wednesday night home game vs Sheff Utd. And with a third away game three days after the last of that trio.

Then it's another switch from feast to famine. No game - after the eight in 28 days - for the next 13 days because of, you guessed it, another international break. But then... November 21 to January 1, a period of 42 days, brings 10 games, including plenty of midweek games, and culminating in three festive fixtures in a seven-day period.

It really is all or nothing, and if you want to look at reasons why so many clubs are being hit by more injuries these days, you surely have to consider the uneven calendar of matches as one possible factor. I can't believe more in the game haven't raised this as an issue. Maybe I am missing something?

Of course it's unlikely to change any time in the near future. For clubs at our level, international breaks have become part of the season. As much as the vast majority of clubs' fans don't like them, they are here and we have to lump them. They're worse, of course, when there's no meaningful qualifying games for a World Cup or Euros being played during them.

The current break covers two weekends - a new innovation designed to cut down on the number of different stoppages that occur during the English season. I'm not sure it's any better myself, for it gives us exactly the same number of blank weekends and arguably gives us one congested fortnight outside of the breaks more than we had before.

As for Pompey and their eventual return to action, we must hope that the gap between games has seen a few injuries heal and that the teamsheet at St Mary's might contain one or two names that we'd half forgotten were in the 25-man squad.

So what exactly does our 28-day run of eight games hold? Well it's Southampton A, Sheffield Utd H, Norwich A, Wolves A, Millwall H, Burnley A, Swansea H, Stoke H.

In our first seven games of 26-27, we accrued eight points, and you'd have to say the next batch of games needs a better points-per-game return if we're to haul ourselves away from the sort of season-long-bottom-group struggle we've had in each of the past two seasons.

Is 12 points a realistic target from these next eight? Wins over the Blades, Millwall, Burnley and Stoke - defeats in the other four, for example. Or three of those games being won, one drawn, and a point being picked up v Southampton and v Swansea too?

It doesn't sound greedy to want that sort of return, and it would, you'd think, haul us up to somewhere in mid-table ahead of the next break and the end-of-year run of 10 games.

But the Championship is as unpredictable this year as it usually us, and you'd not be stunned into silence if we were to win at St Mary's then lose at home to Sheffield United, for example.

We can only hope that the hectic schedule brings some Blues momentum and maybe even a settled team. The last bit may be too much to ask for, given our injury record so far this season, which somehow feels even worse than in previous years.

As ever, you just want your key men to be available for most, if not all, games. We've got Connor Ogilvie, Josh Murphy and one or two others coming back into contention before too long and we're told Conor Shaughnessy will be back after the derby. And maybe we're due an injury-free spell. We can dream.

But whatever happens, at least we'll have some proper matches to think about, and that will be an improvement in itself on 21 days of nothing.

fratton