No credit and no plaudits: Portsmouth's Marlon Park lifts lid on football's 'unselfish' role

The 31-year-old has forged a career out of performing as a holding midfielder since second-year scholarship days at Fratton Park.

As a youngster, he closely studied former Pompey favourite Richard Hughes, who unselfishly performed in the position 165 times during nine seasons with the Blues.

Since then, Pack himself has amassed nearly 600 career appearances in a role he will now fulfil under Danny Cowley.

And for Buckland lad, the team comes before any personal glory

He told The News: ‘It's a very unselfish role, I feel. CDM is my best role and the role I have been brought in to play at Pompey.

‘Throughout my career you do a job for the team more than yourself, you give other players the ball quite quickly, you help the team tick over, you’re not always progressive with your passing.

‘Sometimes you keep the ball just to take the sting out of an attack or help the team build, also, from an attacking perspective, you don’t really get forward as much because you’re looking out and making sure you’ve got numbers behind the ball.

‘So when the ball does then break free, hopefully you’re reloading the attack or are in a good position to put out fires.

‘I think it’s a very important role in football. You probably don’t get the credit and the plaudits, but that’s fine, it's a team game, as long as you’re giving the team a good platform and doing a job that’s the main thing.

‘When I was growing up at Pompey, I liked watching Hughesie and spoke to him about the role a few times. He’s a really good guy who always had a lot of time for the young lads.

‘Considering the amount of talent at Pompey at the time, he played a lot of games, which goes to show how important those types of players are.

‘His position is one I’ve had years of playing now, I feel quite established playing it and know the role and the benefits it can have on the team.’

Pack joins a midfield group which contains Joe Morrell, Louis Thompson and Ryan Tunnicliffe vying for places.

Morrell and Thompson ended the campaign in fine form as a midfield twosome.

However, Pack is the natural defensive midfielder Cowley previously lacked, despite Thompson’s impressive showings in the role.

Pack added: ‘I’ve played in a flat two in midfield, we dovetail, but it’s very popular at the moment to play three in midfield.

‘Whether that’s a one behind the two or perhaps two behind a one, it depends on the opposition’s formation.

‘In a game depending on how it’s going and how the opposition are setting up, that could easily interchange where you end up being a two at times or the one.’

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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