Dave Nugent, Lauren, Ben Sahar and Jerome Thomas have all been left out of our uefa cup squad list – quite how much you can read into this would be mere speculation… but I am happy to do this!
I think this just about puts the final nail in Nugent’s coffin as far as his future with Pompey is concerned, at least as far as from the point of view that Harry Redknapp and co have…
Seeing Lauren left out is a slight surprise for me as he has featured on the bench for us this season, that said he is a player that I expected to see move on over the summer – and still probably will in the New Year?
Sahar is only on loan until the New Year so this is not so much of a surprise really but – maybe Chelski wanted this as well so he was not cup tied in Europe for the second half of the season perhaps?
Although he is injured Thomas’ omission does surprise me a little as he could have given us an option from the bench – but he would probably miss a large chunk of our European action between now and February, when the squad can be changed, in any case – depending on how far we go and how bad his back injury is of course!
Djimi Traore and Richard Duffy also miss out, but this is not a surprise at all.
New uefa selection policies do appear to have come into place this season in the uefa cup as well as the champions league – I had thought this was the case, but was told it was not. These changes are probably also contributing factors toward the most surprising quartet missing out?
You can select a maximum of 25 players, but from these 25 at least 8 must be filled by ‘home grown talent’, so if you cannot fill this quota you must name fewer players, and our squad is made up of 23 names – who they are in full is not known to me at this point to be honest…
From these 8 there are 4 places reserved for players that have come through an ‘academy side’ in England between the ages of 15-21, which could mean a few ‘could’ qualify but The News says that Jamie Ashdown, Sol Campbell, Peter Crouch and Jermain Defoe are the ones on this score.
The other 4 reserved spots are only for ‘graduates of the Pompey academy’, players that have been with us between the ages of 15-21 – and we only have 2 that fall into this bracket, they are Marc Wilson and Matt Ritchie, so I guess both have been named? To be honest Ritchie is not a player I would mind seeing given a chance in the 1st team this season, as he always does the business in the reserves!
The other 15, of course we lose the other 2 for Pompey academy graduates, should not be that difficult to work out really should they and the full squad I would guess is:
David James
Jamie Ashdown
Glen Johnson
Armand Traore
Nadir Belhadj
Hermann Hreidarsson
Sylvain Distin
Sol Campbell
Younes Kaboul
Noe Pamarot
Marc Wilson
Lassana Diarra
Niko Kranjcar
Sean Davis
Papa Bouba Diop
Arnold Mvuemba
Glen Little
Richard Hughes
Matt Richie
Peter Crouch
Jermain Defoe
Kanu
John Utaka
Does this squad sound about right?
It all depends if we go in with just two keepers or not? Although I would guess if one gets injured you get ‘special dispensation’ to bring another in?
PLAY UP POMPEY!
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