Doggo gives his musings on the current state of the Pompey squad, what we have left and what they offer.
So what have we got left?
Goalkeepers:
Begovic – Above Ashdown as number 2 GK now.
Ashdown – Looking for 1st team action, may move on too this window.
James – Has been strangely quiet since his op.
Defenders:
Cranie – England Under 21 and just not a premiership player.
Wilson – Up and coming youngster – needs time to prove himself at this level, not 1st team material yet.
Distin – off to villa for £3m?
Kaboul – With Distin we can at least have a solid central pairing.
Hreidarsson – We nearly lost him!
Primus – Player – Ambassador – Team Spiritualist?
Midfield:
Diop – Was missed last season.
Basinas – Deserves a chance – played well when allowed to!
Mullins – Huffs and puffs but no inspiration to those around him.
Kranjcar – Last season for Pompey and he’s off.
Belhadj – Ok can defend as well 😉 just needs to keep his cool!
Hughes – Born Survivor the number of contract he has had.
Strikers:
Utaka – mostly right midfield last when used, next player to Go?
Nugent – works hard when not injured! Needs goals, and needs to play up front in a 4-4-2.
What can be said, except I’ll be going to watch the local pre-season friendlies, and take a look at the trialist’s, shall wear my replica kit just in case they need to bring a supporter on to make up the numbers;-)
Seriously though, Pompey can still put out a team that wouldn’t look much different from a starting 11 at the tail end of last season. There is core of players still, which can be built on. What we need is some star quality to replace the quality we have lost last year.
We need a defender in every position, a left and right sided midfielder and 2 strikers that’s 8 players, so the new administration needs to buy 6 new players and bribe 2 loanees to join us, for Pompey to have any chance of survival this season.
That’s a fact Mr SAF its no good have plans for the academy, new training ground, a revamped FP, if we are bottom of the table and then relegated, your BP will just go down the drain, I for one don’t mind where we are in the table next season, as long as its not in a relegation position. So bringing in players that will ensure our stay in the PL is OK by me, and so far I for one am happy that our wage bill has been reduced, we have sent out a message, and the message is we have got our house in order, and can at last possibly turn a profit.
I for 1 am sick of players astronomical wages, Sol Campbell was supposedly on 100K a week, I know a players career is short but he will have earned my lifetimes income in 4 months, nothing short of obscene when you think of it. So don’t anyone give me any crap over this ok, cos player wages make me bitter, I did some maths Sol Campbell’s wages accounted for 50% all gate receipts in a year. Now that he has gone sure we can reduce ticket prices by 50%, and the club will still be better off.
Ok fantasy I know, but if that was the costs of just 1 player, make you wonder about the total and how easily the club could afford to almost give away season tickets, one thing is for sure you would easily fill a 50,000 seater stadium for every game if season ticket were reduced by 2/3rds.
Anyway going back to the main point above, I am happy for this club to finish 16th this season as long as :-
1. Tangible evidence that work on revamping the stadium and training ground and academy is visible – take note Mr Storrie, no more spin, we don’t want spin from you anymore, we are sick of it. We don’t want dreams, we want something real, something we can touch.
2. PFC need to control its own destiny, not finance institutions, we don’t want to read the rubbish that the press report or the opposite spin from the club, to later find out what the press said was actually true!
3. Oh and lastly, I don’t care which manager is in charge at the start of the season, as long as players are brought in to the club to play in the natural position of the best skill level, I don’t want to see a prima donna player played out of position just to give home a place in the team, I would rather see 10 average outfield players in their natural positions playing above average team football because they actually know how to play in the position they are playing in.
Last season was the worst i have ever seen in 15 years of watching Pompey play, so if you have to sell more players because we are overloaded in one position, do it, but lets have 22 players, 2 natural players in each position.
Thanks for listening ~ Doggo
Written by doggo.
The views within this article are the views of the individual who wrote and submitted this piece, sometimes solely theirs. They are not necessarily shared by the Vital Pompey Site Journalists.
