Pompey this morning completed a double transfer swoop, one for West Ham’s Hayden Mullins on a 3-and-a-half year contract for an undisclosed fee – thought to be around £1m – and the other being Pele on loan from Porto until the summer, with the view to a permanent move.
I do not even have to look at comments on this site to know people will not be happy with these signings, I know that Mullins will be viewed as ‘not good enough’ and an ‘inadequate replacement for Lassana Diarra’ – but to be fair, he is not a replacement, we cannot and probably never will again replace him, for a club like ours – and many, many others – I would suggest he is one in a million! A sky sports news reporter was saying that if the fee was £1m, as they ‘understood’, then that was a fantastic piece of business…
To be fair we have needed a decent holding midfielder for ages, for me, as much as I love Richard Hughes, man love of course, he cannot really ‘play football’ can he. He can break it up, but not much more, crab like passes are his game – as in sideways… Mullins can play football, which will hopefully help the midfield more and help us create more. He can score the odd goal as well!
As for Pele, real name Vitor Hugo Gomes Passos, everyone wants to unearth some hidden gems – apparently he is not so hidden, more ‘been lost’, is there not an outside chance he could be one of them? Formerly with Inter, with fans apparently not pleased when he was allowed to move to Porto.
Should we not at least give them a chance?
I can appreciate the frustration people are feeling at ‘our signings’, but for what do we expect?
Lets make no bones about it here guys, Tony Adams has been brought in to do a job – that job cut costs and not moan and groan about it, I would say almost a 100% factually statement! He did this at Wycombe, his job was to cut costs, let players go and keep them up afloat – his record was not good, which it is not here, but he did this.
The top, top quality names people are ‘expecting’ to arrive wont, we do not have the money to do this! It is lavish spending that has brought us success, ok maybe not bought as we did not buy the FA cup, but also left us in the position we are now, if you do not have it you cannot spend it – if you continue to do so when you do not you get up a certain creek! Hell, just ask the likes of Leeds, Forest, Sheffield Wednesday, Charlton, I guess even the lot down the road and so on what happens when you fall from grace…
I think we are all probably guilty of getting ahead of ourselves maybe thinking we almost have ‘a divine right’ to sign star names, for me Mullins ‘would’ have been acceptable a year or so back, yep we have moved on a bit, but are paying the price now.
Granted I’m not entirely inspired of course, but a body, and affordable one at that, is fair enough – replacing Diarra? Get real, but then again no one ever was going to, and probably never will…
If we do make any ‘star name’ signings, which maybe we can, then they will only be on loan, and even then the chances of bringing them in for good are unlikely – ‘maybe’ if they are going out of contract we may well do, if not, unless cheap, no chance.
Survival is the name of the game this season – cutting the wage bill the next step, and we have started this, with more big earners seeing their contracts ending in the summer this will cut it more and providing his tactical knowledge can buck up fast – and this is shooting him, and us, in the foot over and over – then Adams can start showing us ‘his team’ next season, something that he has said more than once will be the case.
I will continue to back him when many others wont. Yep, his tactical awareness has been shocking, maybe it is my liking to the fellas honesty, genuine nature and his no hidden agendas desire to do well here that wins me over… What will sacking him achieve? If anyone else thinks that anyone else would be able to come in and spend money they are wrong, maybe they could inspire more perhaps, but I doubt they would last long either as they would not enjoy having to part with star names, which chances are we will again in the summer…
Mullins and Pele, inspirational signings?
Hell no, anyone that claims they are are out of their minds! Decent signings, but more importantly signings, is what they are.
It at least means we can start playing more round pegs in round holes again, to be fair in many respects, most of the times recently the square pegs in round holes has been out of necessity!
Yep, we cannot rejoice in these signings, but lets not completely write them off of the bat – am I the only one that has been expecting these types of signings? I have hoped for the big boys, but surely we must have known this was not going to happen. ‘Fingers crossed’ another loan or two could arrive to prove this, but lets not be banking on it.
PLAY UP POMPEY!
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