We haven't won games we maybe should have and we haven't converted chances we should have.'

'We've had a few problems and lately have just not been able to score away from home. 'Have we been unlucky? I'm not so sure,' he says. Everyone's place is under scrutiny, although Taylor refuses to blame a lack of fortune for Portsmouth's plight. Redknapp was furious at 'schoolboy errors' in defence during last Saturday's sapping home defeat to Everton. Nevertheless, he will have a fight on his hands, as will all his team-mates. But we've had a couple of chances to change it and I'm back in now and won't give up the shirt easily.' Whilst we were winning the manager wasn't going to change it and quite rightly so. 'But you have to be good enough to get back in and I'm confident in my own ability. Did he ever fear he would be overlooked? 'Of course you do,' Taylor admits before his usual, exuberant self-belief floods back. He glosses over his injury - 'it was frustrating but we have to deal with injuries, and everyone knows there are going to be bad times and hopefully I've had mine now' - but while he was out, Redknapp increased the squad with a bewildering number of recruits. The question was even broached as to whether he could charge his way into the squad for Euro 2004. There was a juggernaut momentum to his career - it was said he was worth £3m or £4m, England honours were called for (triggering more money for Luton). The Premiership beckoned and the precocious left-back/midfielder, 22 in November, made it into every newspaper's 'one to watch' list for the new season.

That was after Taylor's £400,000 move (rising to £1m) two summers ago from Luton Town, where he had just won promotion, to Portsmouth, where he went on to win promotion in May. 'At least Dick Turpin had the decency to wear a mask,' Joe Kinnear said. This is a young player who has been hot-to-trot ever since his former manager likened the fee that his current manager, Harry Redknapp, paid for him to daylight robbery. Little Wonder the number plate on Matthew Taylor's car ends in the letters SXY.

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