Sylvain Distin says Portsmouth's players are flagging because of a busy fixture list.

The French defender told The News: "I think about the international players we've got and, whenever we have a break, they still go off and play one or two games.

"I wonder how they do that?

"At the moment the amount of games we have makes it very, very difficult unless you have got a big squad and you have a big turnover - but we don't really have too much cover for those playing the games.

"I love my job but if I feel like I can't perform then I'd like not to play or to come out of the side. At the moment I feel good so I don't see why I'm not going to play, but it could happen.

"There are a lot of games at the moment. I'm not complaining, I'm just making a statement and maybe there's the reason why we didn't perform in the first half against West Brom. Maybe we needed a bit more time to get the legs going and get in the game. We'd only come back from Germany two days earlier. I love the game, I love to play and I know how lucky I am to have that job.

"But playing so many games in so little time can be difficult for the players."