The match
Chelsea came and brought the pressure, but they were unable to put one in the back of the net. This was through a combination of great keeping from David James and the goal posts. Of course poor finishing played a roll as well. Pompey were not without there chances, they were trying to hit Chelsea on the counter and had some success, but they were plagued by poor finishing as well. Kalou and Piquionne both missed absolute sitters in the first half.
At half time there was a definite feeling that Pompey could grab the victory, manly because there seemed to be some magic preventing Chelsea from scoring. When Pompey won a penalty I fully admit to thinking that we were going to get it done, then came the first of evening's poorly taken penalties. When Boateng missed the game changed, Chelsea felt they caught a break and immediately capitalised. Drogba hit a wonderful free kick and Chelsea won a match that they dominated.
I think that Avram Grant and the Pompey players did an excellent job is what was likely their last performance for the club.
The Pub
I watched the match live at midnight Australian time in the Charles Dickens Pub in downtown Melbourne. Luckily I was joined there by members of Pompey Down Under, all in all there were about a dozen singing Pompey fans, myself included. It was a great atmosphere at the pub, it felt like it was full of Pompey fans, until Drogba scored that is. There were apparently a number of Chelsea fans sitting in the pub, who had previously been as quiet as a mouse. Not one of them screamed out when Kalou missed the sitter in the first half. It was quite a shock to all of the Pompey fans to discover that there were in fact actual Chelsea fans in the bar, but I think it shows that if points were given for fans our league positions may well have been reversed.
Boateng - Ballack
For those that don't know Kevin Prince Boateng recently pulled an Asmir Begovic and switched international allegiances from the country he represented at U21 level (Germany) to another country (Ghana). I wonder where he got the idea... (Begovic and Boateng were teammates for the first half of the season at Pompey) In case you were curious Boateng's father is from Ghana. To continue with storyline's that are all too familiar to Canadian fans... Boateng's brother (well half brother) plays for Germany and is a part of their World Cup Squad. Even more interesting is that Ghana & Germany are in the same group in South Africa. We actually shouldn't be surprised that Ghana recruited Kevin Prince Boateng afterall they tried the same thing in the last World Cup when they tried to recruit Freddy Adu. (USA was in Ghana's group in Germany) This was the situation ahead of what happened in the FA Cup.
Ballack went for a header and arrived late, in the process he deposited an elbow on the head of Aruna Dindane (who won the header) Dindane was awarded a free kick for this. Kevin Prince Boateng confronted Ballack about the elbow, and no doubt said a few things in German, and Ballack replied with a slap to Boateng's face. Had the ref seen it, it would have been a red card. To Boateng's credit he didn't flop on to the ground and roll around to draw the card. However Kevin Prince Boateng is well known for being a hothead, and his fewer red cards this season was seen as an improvement. It was this hothead that came in late and injured Ballack. We now know that Ballack will miss the World Cup with the injury that he sustained as a result of Boateng's challenge. That is a cruel blow to deal to any player.
Final Thoughts
Congrats to Chelsea on their first ever double, Congrats to Portsmouth for a fantastic cup run, and thanks to Avram Grant and the Pompey players for leaving it all on the field. Next season will be full of changes for Pompey as we rebuild from zero. Play Up Pompey!
Showing posts with label Portsmouth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Portsmouth. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Portsmouth lose 1-0 again
7 played. 7 lost. This has happened in the top flight before in 1930 - 1931, that team Manchester United. Though United were relegated that year, Portsmouth were fourth that season by the way. I am going to keep saying what I have said already. We are not amongst the three worst teams in the premier league. I think that we will stay up. Here are some of my thoughts on the match against Everton.
Both keepers played amazing. David James gave a performance that would have caught the attention of Fabio Capello. While Tim Howard showed some of the form that helped the US make the Confederations' Cup final. They were helped out by solid defensive play around them. Both teams managed to clear balls off the line.
I thought that both teams played well, there were very few moments that we dull in the match. As I mentioned in my previous post looking at the first five matches, we haven't seem able to catch any breaks. The main incident here that easily could have gone our way was when Heitinga pushed over Boateng when the cross was coming into the box. The only reason that I can think of as to why the referee didn't award the penalty was that the cross was a little high, but it likely looked higher than it was because Boateng was on the ground. Penalties have certainly been given for less. Then Mokoena headed onto the bar, it made for painful viewing. The header from Ben Haim was almost directly at Howard, who made a fantastic shoulder save.
This is our fourth 1-0 loss this season and our fifth 1 goal loss. We are not playing poorly we are just not getting results. The way that we are playing we will get points, and finally we get some help from the schedule too. Our next matches are @Wolves, Home to Harry, Defoe, Crouch, & Kranjcar, @Hull, and Home to Wigan. Three of those are quite winnable and one is a match that everyone has circled on the calender. October is going to be a great month for Pompey.
Both keepers played amazing. David James gave a performance that would have caught the attention of Fabio Capello. While Tim Howard showed some of the form that helped the US make the Confederations' Cup final. They were helped out by solid defensive play around them. Both teams managed to clear balls off the line.
I thought that both teams played well, there were very few moments that we dull in the match. As I mentioned in my previous post looking at the first five matches, we haven't seem able to catch any breaks. The main incident here that easily could have gone our way was when Heitinga pushed over Boateng when the cross was coming into the box. The only reason that I can think of as to why the referee didn't award the penalty was that the cross was a little high, but it likely looked higher than it was because Boateng was on the ground. Penalties have certainly been given for less. Then Mokoena headed onto the bar, it made for painful viewing. The header from Ben Haim was almost directly at Howard, who made a fantastic shoulder save.
This is our fourth 1-0 loss this season and our fifth 1 goal loss. We are not playing poorly we are just not getting results. The way that we are playing we will get points, and finally we get some help from the schedule too. Our next matches are @Wolves, Home to Harry, Defoe, Crouch, & Kranjcar, @Hull, and Home to Wigan. Three of those are quite winnable and one is a match that everyone has circled on the calender. October is going to be a great month for Pompey.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Julian de Guzman to Portsmouth could it really happen?
As soon as Lassana Diarra was sold to Real Madrid I told anyone that would listen "We have a JDG sized hole in our midfield." JDG is of course Julian de Guzman, star Canadian midfielder who was seeing out his contract at Deportivo La Coruña in the top flight of Spanish football. Sadly he spent most of last season on the bench at Depor after privately and later publicly complaining about the €800,000 in unpaid bonuses he had earned. In the 2007/2008 season he was the club's player of the year as well as the Gold Cup MVP. To claim the honour from Deportivo La Coruña he led the club to European football. The Gold Cup MVP is also considerable seeing as how Canada only reached the semi final. Now that you have some back story, we can go back to January 2009 when JDG was sitting on the bench in Spain and refused to sign a new contract with the club until they paid the bonus money. That is why I thought it would be an ideal time for Portsmouth to use some of the £20M that we received for "Lass" to buy JDG. I thought that rather then let him leave for free at the end of the season La Coruña would be open to an offer. Disappointingly no offer came from Portsmouth and surprisingly no other clubs bid for his services either.
When the transfer window opened at the start of the summer, I wasn't sure of where Julian would end up and who would be in charge at Portsmouth. Julian came home to Toronto ahead of joining up with the National side for the Gold Cup. He did interviews where he talked about his desire to stay in Europe and said that now was not the time for him to join Toronto FC. Just a note here Toronto's director Mo Johnston has always described Julian as the ideal designated player for Toronto FC. Then before the Gold Cup got underway there were rumours that TFC had offered him a contract. That of course was not the surprise, it was the fact that he was considering it that got the attention of the blogosphere and the media as a whole. Eventually it came out that the deal offered was $10M over 3 years (about £30,000/week) and what was more it was nearly done. This combined with the fact that The Score's Kristian Jack wrote an article that had two key points. First that the deal with TFC was 90% complete. This news worried a lot of Canadian supporters, as it would not have been good for our best player to return to the MLS in the prime of his career. Don't get me wrong, it would have been a great signing for TFC, but bad for Canada and bad for Julian. The second point KJ made was that Julian had tried to drum up interest from Celtic, Spurs, & Pompey. His attempts weren't greeted with much enthusiasm from the clubs. This set off a flare in me, JDG wanted to play for Pompey and we weren't interested? Looking back I hope now that the lack of interest was because we didn't have an owner or a manager in place. It was a similar situation with Celtic not having a boss either. Spurs were linked with JDG in January but perhaps had filled the role that JDG was going to play in. What ever the reasons were, I did take some spirit from the fact that JDG had considered Pompey a possible destination.
I then set upon the task of letting other Pompey fans know that JDG is interested in playing for us. I started by writing to the club and urging them to sign JDG (I had done this in January as well and I have yet to hear a response from either message). Then it was on to the forums I made posts that we should sign Julian and over the course of July it started to gain support, there were other Pompey fans that had seen him play and thought he would be a good signing. It was starting to gain momentum then I sent a question to Pompey Talk from the News (the News is a Portsmouth based newspaper) which they read out and then discussed Julian for about a minute. Most of them hadn't heard of him, but they were going to look into it and mention it to Paul Hart when they saw him. I can only hope that this happens.
The facts remain the same Julian needs to find a club, and Pompey need players. Given that we are offering trials to 25 year old midfielders from the French League, I am a little baffled that we haven't made a move Julian yet. As the topic continues to spread I hope that Julian is given a look. A possible bonus is that Portugal are now training in North Portugal about 300km from where Julian played in Spain, hopefully some casual enquiries would bring Hart more encouragement to sign JDG. We play Fulham in a little over a fortnight and I know I am not alone in wanting to see Julian de Guzman in our starting lineup at Fratton Park on August 15th.
When the transfer window opened at the start of the summer, I wasn't sure of where Julian would end up and who would be in charge at Portsmouth. Julian came home to Toronto ahead of joining up with the National side for the Gold Cup. He did interviews where he talked about his desire to stay in Europe and said that now was not the time for him to join Toronto FC. Just a note here Toronto's director Mo Johnston has always described Julian as the ideal designated player for Toronto FC. Then before the Gold Cup got underway there were rumours that TFC had offered him a contract. That of course was not the surprise, it was the fact that he was considering it that got the attention of the blogosphere and the media as a whole. Eventually it came out that the deal offered was $10M over 3 years (about £30,000/week) and what was more it was nearly done. This combined with the fact that The Score's Kristian Jack wrote an article that had two key points. First that the deal with TFC was 90% complete. This news worried a lot of Canadian supporters, as it would not have been good for our best player to return to the MLS in the prime of his career. Don't get me wrong, it would have been a great signing for TFC, but bad for Canada and bad for Julian. The second point KJ made was that Julian had tried to drum up interest from Celtic, Spurs, & Pompey. His attempts weren't greeted with much enthusiasm from the clubs. This set off a flare in me, JDG wanted to play for Pompey and we weren't interested? Looking back I hope now that the lack of interest was because we didn't have an owner or a manager in place. It was a similar situation with Celtic not having a boss either. Spurs were linked with JDG in January but perhaps had filled the role that JDG was going to play in. What ever the reasons were, I did take some spirit from the fact that JDG had considered Pompey a possible destination.
I then set upon the task of letting other Pompey fans know that JDG is interested in playing for us. I started by writing to the club and urging them to sign JDG (I had done this in January as well and I have yet to hear a response from either message). Then it was on to the forums I made posts that we should sign Julian and over the course of July it started to gain support, there were other Pompey fans that had seen him play and thought he would be a good signing. It was starting to gain momentum then I sent a question to Pompey Talk from the News (the News is a Portsmouth based newspaper) which they read out and then discussed Julian for about a minute. Most of them hadn't heard of him, but they were going to look into it and mention it to Paul Hart when they saw him. I can only hope that this happens.
The facts remain the same Julian needs to find a club, and Pompey need players. Given that we are offering trials to 25 year old midfielders from the French League, I am a little baffled that we haven't made a move Julian yet. As the topic continues to spread I hope that Julian is given a look. A possible bonus is that Portugal are now training in North Portugal about 300km from where Julian played in Spain, hopefully some casual enquiries would bring Hart more encouragement to sign JDG. We play Fulham in a little over a fortnight and I know I am not alone in wanting to see Julian de Guzman in our starting lineup at Fratton Park on August 15th.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
All Aboard - How to jump on the Bandwagon before anyone notices
Welcome to my guide on how to jump on the bandwagon before anyone notices. The whole reason being of course that if you are planning on picking a team to support in England, you would like to feel like a genuine fan. If you pick one of the established big teams (Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, or Arsenal) because they win things then you are unashamedly jumping on the bandwagon (other reasons such as family ties, players from your country [Hargreaves doesn't count] or they have the word Arse in their name add some legitimacy). The same goes if you pick Manchester City, ever since they started buying everyone they could think of, their bandwagon is getting full. But this guide is designed for those of you who don't have a team yet and are looking to make the right choice. Perhaps you follow another league like the Bundesliga, La Liga, or Serie A, or maybe you are new to football and reading this because I told you to. Whatever the reason, I have identified a few teams that are likely to go places, that way when your club hits the big time you will already have been a fan for a few years.
If you have not read the Some Canadian Guys Guide to being a Canadian Premier League Fan, I suggest you do so. It will provide some helpful tips about your impending football fandom. In step two they talk about picking a team that is ripe for promotion, this is key to getting on the bandwagon before anyone notices. I am going to look at four teams in England that are ripe for jumping on the Bandwagon. They are all in different leagues and at the moment there bandwagons are moving slowly, or parked, so no one will notice if you jump on, not to mention you will have been there a little while by the time that people start clambering to support your team.
Without further delay your first option. League Two side Notts County. They finished 87th out of the 92 professional football teams in England last season. However they were bought (pending league approval) buy a Qatari consortium. They have installed Sven Goran Eriksson as Director of Football. Yes you read that correctly, it is former Lazio, Manchester City, Mexico, & England manager Sven Goran Eriksson. In case you don't know a director of football is sort of like the general manager in North American sports. Eriksson has pledged to take the magpies to the Premier League.
Notts County are one of the World's oldest football clubs and in fact Juventus got their black & white colours from Notts County. Admittedly the magpies are in the news a lot now, so it would probably be best to wait until the Premier League starts before jumping on the bandwagon, unless you plan to do a little research into the past few seasons and then say something along the lines of "I can't believe that we got Sven!". Most Premier League fans won't check back on the Magpies until near the end of the season to see where Sven has got them. I think that there is no reason to believe that the Magpies will not be in the Premier League at some point in the next decade, by which time you will have been a dedicated supporter and have enjoyed a lot of success in getting promoted three times.
Estimated time to the Premier League 6 - 9 years.
Let's keep on going to the next club, (cringe) League One side Southampton. Now you will have to excuse me here as Southampton are the arch rivals of my club Portsmouth, we tend to refer to Southampton and any player that has ever played for Southampton as "Scummer". However in the interests of providing you with choices, here we go. Southampton were just relegated from the Championship, and they will start next season with negative 10 points because they went bankrupt. Only two weeks ago Southampton were bought by Swiss billionaire Markus Liebherr, who has installed former Reading, West Ham, and Charlton manager Alan Pardew as the manager. They have almost no players at the moment as they had to sell all of them to avoid collapsing entirely before they were bought. However Pardew has proven himself to be a decent manager, and could get the Scummers err Saints back to the Championship in a few seasons. It remains to be seen how much of his fortune that Markus Liebherr is willing to spend to improve the team, but it is likely that if they reach the Premier League that they will likely stick around.
Estimated time to the Premier League 5 - 8 years. (They will never be as good as Portsmouth)
The next stop on the Bandwagon tour, is Championship side Queens Park Rangers. They are actually the second richest club in England, after Manchester City. This is thanks to the big bucks of India's richest man (and London resident) Lakshmi Mittal. There was a lot in the news about the club when Mittal took over, but since they failed to attain promotion last season, they have been out of the news. They haven't been spending absurd amounts of money, but once they reach the Premier League, and they will reach the Premier League, they will spend money and I expect them to stay there once they make it. Which is why now is a great time to jump on the QPR bandwagon.
Estimated time to the Premier League 1-3 years.
The final club is Premier League side Portsmouth. They are already in the Premier League and have been bought by U.A.E. businessman Sulaiman Al Fahim. He has big plans for the club and is planning to start slowly. He wants to develop a strong youth academy and build a new stadium. The evidence is the fact that newly appointed boss Paul Hart has stated that the main goal for the club next season is to avoid relegation. Given that this is a slow build and Portsmouth aren't likely to tear up the league, it is a good time to jump on board the bandwagon. As a Portsmouth fan myself I would gladly welcome you to the fold. In fact Portsmouth or Pompey as we are also known are home to the best fans in the football, another bonus when picking a club. Not to mention if you live in Canada you would boost the Canadian Pompey supporters by 5% (based on my belief that there are already 20 of us). If you are curious about what life is like a Portsmouth fan, you can read Chuck Culpepper's book Bloody Confused.
Estimated time to the Premier League - Already there.
So there you have it, four choices that will put in you in a great position as a fan in a few years, so if you are looking for an English team to support have a look at a few of these choices and choose wisely, because many people don't choose teams most are born into them, so switching allegiances is heavily frowned upon. Once you have your team, sit back, relax, and watch the matches, the tough part was choosing.
If you have not read the Some Canadian Guys Guide to being a Canadian Premier League Fan, I suggest you do so. It will provide some helpful tips about your impending football fandom. In step two they talk about picking a team that is ripe for promotion, this is key to getting on the bandwagon before anyone notices. I am going to look at four teams in England that are ripe for jumping on the Bandwagon. They are all in different leagues and at the moment there bandwagons are moving slowly, or parked, so no one will notice if you jump on, not to mention you will have been there a little while by the time that people start clambering to support your team.
Without further delay your first option. League Two side Notts County. They finished 87th out of the 92 professional football teams in England last season. However they were bought (pending league approval) buy a Qatari consortium. They have installed Sven Goran Eriksson as Director of Football. Yes you read that correctly, it is former Lazio, Manchester City, Mexico, & England manager Sven Goran Eriksson. In case you don't know a director of football is sort of like the general manager in North American sports. Eriksson has pledged to take the magpies to the Premier League.
Notts County are one of the World's oldest football clubs and in fact Juventus got their black & white colours from Notts County. Admittedly the magpies are in the news a lot now, so it would probably be best to wait until the Premier League starts before jumping on the bandwagon, unless you plan to do a little research into the past few seasons and then say something along the lines of "I can't believe that we got Sven!". Most Premier League fans won't check back on the Magpies until near the end of the season to see where Sven has got them. I think that there is no reason to believe that the Magpies will not be in the Premier League at some point in the next decade, by which time you will have been a dedicated supporter and have enjoyed a lot of success in getting promoted three times.
Estimated time to the Premier League 6 - 9 years.
Let's keep on going to the next club, (cringe) League One side Southampton. Now you will have to excuse me here as Southampton are the arch rivals of my club Portsmouth, we tend to refer to Southampton and any player that has ever played for Southampton as "Scummer". However in the interests of providing you with choices, here we go. Southampton were just relegated from the Championship, and they will start next season with negative 10 points because they went bankrupt. Only two weeks ago Southampton were bought by Swiss billionaire Markus Liebherr, who has installed former Reading, West Ham, and Charlton manager Alan Pardew as the manager. They have almost no players at the moment as they had to sell all of them to avoid collapsing entirely before they were bought. However Pardew has proven himself to be a decent manager, and could get the Scummers err Saints back to the Championship in a few seasons. It remains to be seen how much of his fortune that Markus Liebherr is willing to spend to improve the team, but it is likely that if they reach the Premier League that they will likely stick around.
Estimated time to the Premier League 5 - 8 years. (They will never be as good as Portsmouth)
The next stop on the Bandwagon tour, is Championship side Queens Park Rangers. They are actually the second richest club in England, after Manchester City. This is thanks to the big bucks of India's richest man (and London resident) Lakshmi Mittal. There was a lot in the news about the club when Mittal took over, but since they failed to attain promotion last season, they have been out of the news. They haven't been spending absurd amounts of money, but once they reach the Premier League, and they will reach the Premier League, they will spend money and I expect them to stay there once they make it. Which is why now is a great time to jump on the QPR bandwagon.
Estimated time to the Premier League 1-3 years.
The final club is Premier League side Portsmouth. They are already in the Premier League and have been bought by U.A.E. businessman Sulaiman Al Fahim. He has big plans for the club and is planning to start slowly. He wants to develop a strong youth academy and build a new stadium. The evidence is the fact that newly appointed boss Paul Hart has stated that the main goal for the club next season is to avoid relegation. Given that this is a slow build and Portsmouth aren't likely to tear up the league, it is a good time to jump on board the bandwagon. As a Portsmouth fan myself I would gladly welcome you to the fold. In fact Portsmouth or Pompey as we are also known are home to the best fans in the football, another bonus when picking a club. Not to mention if you live in Canada you would boost the Canadian Pompey supporters by 5% (based on my belief that there are already 20 of us). If you are curious about what life is like a Portsmouth fan, you can read Chuck Culpepper's book Bloody Confused.
Estimated time to the Premier League - Already there.
So there you have it, four choices that will put in you in a great position as a fan in a few years, so if you are looking for an English team to support have a look at a few of these choices and choose wisely, because many people don't choose teams most are born into them, so switching allegiances is heavily frowned upon. Once you have your team, sit back, relax, and watch the matches, the tough part was choosing.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Portsmouth have a new owner!
It is official now. Suliaman Al Fahim is the new owner of Portsmouth Football Club. This is fantastic news for all Pompey fans.
Of course the takeover has been wrought with difficulties, changing expectations, and rumours galore. That hasn't changed, the first piece of news out of Fratton was that Paul Hart officially had his interim tag removed and he is now the manager of Portsmouth. To say I was a little surprised when I saw this is a bit of an understatement. Now don't get me wrong, Paul Hart is a decent manager and all the players love him, but I think he may be a tad overrated since he got to follow Tony Adams. Hart led us to safety and at the end of last season I wouldn't have been surprised to see him named full time boss, until I heard about the takeover.
As soon as Suliaman Al Fahim was linked with Portsmouth so were, Slaven Bilić, Roberto Mancini, and Sven Goran-Eriksson. You may recall that I even wrote a post about it. As I have already mentioned I think that Hart is a decent manager, but he is not in the same class as any of the other managers that I just mentioned. I fully admit to thinking that Mancini would be the next Pompey boss. The one thing that I am worried about is that to succeed in the Premier League you need to be more than a decent manager.
The other hiccup that fans have noticed is that the buying power that we were rumoured to have with the new owner doesn't seem to have materialised. The rumour is that there were other investors who did not want to be subjected to the Fit & Proper Persons test (a requirement for anyone owning more than 10% of a Premier League Club). This means that Pompey are still looking for transfer bargains.
I know that all Canadians will agree with me that there is not a better bargain out there than Julian de Guzman, who is available on a free transfer after parting ways with Deportivo La Coruña. With some of the selling that we have done, we need help in all positions. At least with Hart in place we can start to bring in new players as we now have someone in charge. Given that the preseason is already underway I hope that we start signing people quickly.
Peter Storrie has mentioned that Portsmouth have 3 or 4 players lined up who could be signed quickly plus another 3 or 4 that they are looking at. I am looking forward to figuring out who these players are. As it happens, Pompey are playing their first preseason match tonight against Havant & Waterlooville (you may remember their FA Cup run). There are few players with us on trial plus a bunch of players that I have never heard of.
Hopefully by the time that the season starts we will have a better idea what the squad looks like, and the sort of year that we can expect. I am interested to here your thoughts, so vote in my poll and let me know where you think that Pompey will end up next May.
Play Up Pompey! Pompey Play Up!
Of course the takeover has been wrought with difficulties, changing expectations, and rumours galore. That hasn't changed, the first piece of news out of Fratton was that Paul Hart officially had his interim tag removed and he is now the manager of Portsmouth. To say I was a little surprised when I saw this is a bit of an understatement. Now don't get me wrong, Paul Hart is a decent manager and all the players love him, but I think he may be a tad overrated since he got to follow Tony Adams. Hart led us to safety and at the end of last season I wouldn't have been surprised to see him named full time boss, until I heard about the takeover.
As soon as Suliaman Al Fahim was linked with Portsmouth so were, Slaven Bilić, Roberto Mancini, and Sven Goran-Eriksson. You may recall that I even wrote a post about it. As I have already mentioned I think that Hart is a decent manager, but he is not in the same class as any of the other managers that I just mentioned. I fully admit to thinking that Mancini would be the next Pompey boss. The one thing that I am worried about is that to succeed in the Premier League you need to be more than a decent manager.
The other hiccup that fans have noticed is that the buying power that we were rumoured to have with the new owner doesn't seem to have materialised. The rumour is that there were other investors who did not want to be subjected to the Fit & Proper Persons test (a requirement for anyone owning more than 10% of a Premier League Club). This means that Pompey are still looking for transfer bargains.
I know that all Canadians will agree with me that there is not a better bargain out there than Julian de Guzman, who is available on a free transfer after parting ways with Deportivo La Coruña. With some of the selling that we have done, we need help in all positions. At least with Hart in place we can start to bring in new players as we now have someone in charge. Given that the preseason is already underway I hope that we start signing people quickly.
Peter Storrie has mentioned that Portsmouth have 3 or 4 players lined up who could be signed quickly plus another 3 or 4 that they are looking at. I am looking forward to figuring out who these players are. As it happens, Pompey are playing their first preseason match tonight against Havant & Waterlooville (you may remember their FA Cup run). There are few players with us on trial plus a bunch of players that I have never heard of.
Hopefully by the time that the season starts we will have a better idea what the squad looks like, and the sort of year that we can expect. I am interested to here your thoughts, so vote in my poll and let me know where you think that Pompey will end up next May.
Play Up Pompey! Pompey Play Up!
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Portsmouth Takeover Where are we?
There are a lot of rumours swirling around at the moment. So here is what I have heard about the takeover.
The due diligence process is complete. This is fact and has been verified by BBC & Sky Sports. What does it mean? Due diligence was the process where the prospective buyer (Sulaiman Al Fahim) goes over the owner's (Alexandre Gaydamak) books. The books were apparently a lot messier than was originally thought. I have heard rumours of dubious loans etc., but the process is complete which means that Sulaiman Al Fahim knows exactly how much money Portsmouth owes and who it owes it to.
The fit & proper persons test is underway. This is the test that the Premier League does on all owners to make sure that they have money, and came by it legitimately. The test used to be a joke, until the League came under a lot of pressure after it approved former Thai leader Thaksin Shinawatra who allegedly embezzled a lot of government funds. This process should take two weeks (ending on July 24th, 2009). Sulaiman Al Fahim has said he is not worried about it as he is also a UN goodwill ambassador and if he can pass the UN test he will surely pass the Premier League test.
Once the fit & proper persons test is complete the takeover can go ahead which brings me to the last sticking point. The price. It was initially reported that the takeover price would be around £60 Million. By the time that the takeover is completed Portsmouth will have sold Glen Johnson for £17Million and Peter Crouch for £12 Million. This has caused a delay in the due diligence and restarted negotiations about the price that Sulaiman Al Fahim wants to pay, as now the club is without its two best players. All indications are that a price will be agreed in advance of the completion of the fit and proper persons test. That means that on July 24th Sulaiman Al Fahim should be unveiled as the new owner of Portsmouth Football Club.
Who will be in charge? Paul Hart is still the interim manager and is running pre-season training that is underway. He will definitely still be at Portsmouth, but will likely revert to his old role as director of the academy, or perhaps become an assistant to the new manager if Brian Kidd does not stay on in that role. The next manager is likely to be either Slaven Bilić, currently in charge of Croatia or Roberto Mancini formerly of Inter Milan.
How many players do Portsmouth have? We currently have 15 senior players (over 18) under contract, but one of those is Peter Crouch who is certain to leave. Portsmouth will undoubtedly be buying more players before the transfer window closes. However the worrying news is that we may buy as few as five giving us a squad of 19 until the transfer window opens in January. Of the youth players - I think that only Matthew Ritchie is ready to try with the first team boosting the number to 20 which is really really small. If you are interested there are plenty of rumours about who the players are that will be signed, but I won't get into that here.
Why did it take so long? Partly because it was announced way too soon. The due diligence process usually happens behind the scenes, so does the fit and proper persons test, which is why you usually only hear about a takeover a day or two before the new people are actually in charge of the club. Because of the way that Portsmouth's season ended in a relegation battle instead of the top half of the table. I think it was a time for some good news, but this story broke the morning of the Champions League final. In May. It has been an extremely difficult couple of months, for Portsmouth fans, players, staff, everyone. It was simply announced too soon. Partly I believe to try to retain some of our star players, but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel the journey to new ownership is almost over.
It may have been a rough ride, but there are plenty of Portsmouth Supporters that recall when we were sitting 91st out of 92 teams in the mid 70s, and where we are now is an awful lot better than where we were then.
Play Up Pompey!
The due diligence process is complete. This is fact and has been verified by BBC & Sky Sports. What does it mean? Due diligence was the process where the prospective buyer (Sulaiman Al Fahim) goes over the owner's (Alexandre Gaydamak) books. The books were apparently a lot messier than was originally thought. I have heard rumours of dubious loans etc., but the process is complete which means that Sulaiman Al Fahim knows exactly how much money Portsmouth owes and who it owes it to.
The fit & proper persons test is underway. This is the test that the Premier League does on all owners to make sure that they have money, and came by it legitimately. The test used to be a joke, until the League came under a lot of pressure after it approved former Thai leader Thaksin Shinawatra who allegedly embezzled a lot of government funds. This process should take two weeks (ending on July 24th, 2009). Sulaiman Al Fahim has said he is not worried about it as he is also a UN goodwill ambassador and if he can pass the UN test he will surely pass the Premier League test.
Once the fit & proper persons test is complete the takeover can go ahead which brings me to the last sticking point. The price. It was initially reported that the takeover price would be around £60 Million. By the time that the takeover is completed Portsmouth will have sold Glen Johnson for £17Million and Peter Crouch for £12 Million. This has caused a delay in the due diligence and restarted negotiations about the price that Sulaiman Al Fahim wants to pay, as now the club is without its two best players. All indications are that a price will be agreed in advance of the completion of the fit and proper persons test. That means that on July 24th Sulaiman Al Fahim should be unveiled as the new owner of Portsmouth Football Club.
Who will be in charge? Paul Hart is still the interim manager and is running pre-season training that is underway. He will definitely still be at Portsmouth, but will likely revert to his old role as director of the academy, or perhaps become an assistant to the new manager if Brian Kidd does not stay on in that role. The next manager is likely to be either Slaven Bilić, currently in charge of Croatia or Roberto Mancini formerly of Inter Milan.
How many players do Portsmouth have? We currently have 15 senior players (over 18) under contract, but one of those is Peter Crouch who is certain to leave. Portsmouth will undoubtedly be buying more players before the transfer window closes. However the worrying news is that we may buy as few as five giving us a squad of 19 until the transfer window opens in January. Of the youth players - I think that only Matthew Ritchie is ready to try with the first team boosting the number to 20 which is really really small. If you are interested there are plenty of rumours about who the players are that will be signed, but I won't get into that here.
Why did it take so long? Partly because it was announced way too soon. The due diligence process usually happens behind the scenes, so does the fit and proper persons test, which is why you usually only hear about a takeover a day or two before the new people are actually in charge of the club. Because of the way that Portsmouth's season ended in a relegation battle instead of the top half of the table. I think it was a time for some good news, but this story broke the morning of the Champions League final. In May. It has been an extremely difficult couple of months, for Portsmouth fans, players, staff, everyone. It was simply announced too soon. Partly I believe to try to retain some of our star players, but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel the journey to new ownership is almost over.
It may have been a rough ride, but there are plenty of Portsmouth Supporters that recall when we were sitting 91st out of 92 teams in the mid 70s, and where we are now is an awful lot better than where we were then.
Play Up Pompey!
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Circle July 11th on your calender
Big news for Pompey fans! On July 11th the period of due diligence is set to be completed. That means if no problems arise between now and then, Dr. Sulaiman Al Fahim will takeover Portsmouth Football Club. There are rumblings that a lot of behind the scenes work has been going on and that there is a manager and as many as six signings lined up. The rumour also states that these transfers that are lined up will total more than £20M, also there are not going to be any more players sold for the time being. This is finally some positive news around the takeover.
Needless to say Portsmouth supporters are going nuts trying to guess the identities of the new boss and players. On the managerial front of the people linked with the post, Hart, Redknapp, & Sven have all been ruled out. That leaves Bilić, Mancini, Curbs, & Halilhodžić linked with the post. One rumour says that the manager is currently employed which would be Bilić (Croatia) or Halilhodžić (Ivory Coast). Unless you consider the odd predicaments of Mancini & Curbs who are both still settling financial matters with their former clubs, Inter Milan & West Ham respectively. Very few players have been publicly linked with Pompey.
Update: A story this morning has ruled out Halilhodžić. Pompey Chairman Peter Storrie said: 'It's complete and utter rubbish. There's nothing in it at all.'
At this point it could really be any manger along with any players. It is all a mystery until July 11th. As for me I will keep my ear to the ground and hope that when Carlos Tevez says he is deciding between Man City and one other club, that club is us.
Needless to say Portsmouth supporters are going nuts trying to guess the identities of the new boss and players. On the managerial front of the people linked with the post, Hart, Redknapp, & Sven have all been ruled out. That leaves Bilić, Mancini, Curbs, & Halilhodžić linked with the post. One rumour says that the manager is currently employed which would be Bilić (Croatia) or Halilhodžić (Ivory Coast). Unless you consider the odd predicaments of Mancini & Curbs who are both still settling financial matters with their former clubs, Inter Milan & West Ham respectively. Very few players have been publicly linked with Pompey.
Update: A story this morning has ruled out Halilhodžić. Pompey Chairman Peter Storrie said: 'It's complete and utter rubbish. There's nothing in it at all.'
At this point it could really be any manger along with any players. It is all a mystery until July 11th. As for me I will keep my ear to the ground and hope that when Carlos Tevez says he is deciding between Man City and one other club, that club is us.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Portsmouth's next boss
Now that Portsmouth have been bought by Dr. Sulaiman Al Fahim, a billionaire businessman from Abu Dhabi, there is no shortage of managers being linked with the vacant post.
The first candidate is current interim boss Paul Hart. The players responded to him and he led us away from the relegation zone. However the results weren't spectacular and the team seemed unable to score, it was however an improvement over Tony Adams. So far both Kanu & Distin have said that they would like him to stay on. I think that the most likely scenario is that Paul Hart will return to being in charge of the youth players as Dr. Sulaiman Al Fahim has an interest in developing the academy.
The second candidate is former Lazio, England, Man City, & Mexico boss Sven-Goran Eriksson. Eriksson has been a solid club manager and in my opinion was unlucky to be dumped out of Manchester City at the end of last season. That said he is currently looking for work since being fired by Mexico after it started to look like El Tri could miss the World Cup.
The third candidate is current Croatian boss Slaven Bilić. Bilić is young and came to managerial fame by leading Croatia to Euro 2008 at the expense of England. That said I was unimpressed by his choice of playing Niko Kranjcar as a striker to accommodate Luka Modric in the midfield during the Euros. It is always a risk to appoint a manager without any club experience. Hopefully, if he gets the job, he will be like Mark Hughes or Gianfranco Zola who both made successful club management debuts in the Premier League.
I was surprised to see that a fourth candidate might be Harry Redknapp! This move would be a disaster. Harry quit us and moved to Southampton and then we brought him back. I thought it was a bad idea and it took a long time to get used to the idea of him being our manager again. Then Harry quit us again for Spurs, if we brought him back again it would make a mockery of all of us as fans. If Pompey are foolish enough to offer him the job I hope that he has enough sense not to come back.
A fifth candidate has now emerged, the former Fiorentina & Inter Milan boss Roberto Mancini. He has wealth of club experience and trophies to his name. He was sacked by Inter after winning a third straight Serie A title because of his failure to win the Champions League. I think that he would be an excellent hire.
I imagine that Portsmouth will announce who will be charge sometime in the next few weeks and I have no idea who it will be but I would guess that it would be either Mancini, Eriksson or Bilić. Though as we have seen with Harry moving to Spurs and Bruce moving to Sunderland it really could be anyone.
The first candidate is current interim boss Paul Hart. The players responded to him and he led us away from the relegation zone. However the results weren't spectacular and the team seemed unable to score, it was however an improvement over Tony Adams. So far both Kanu & Distin have said that they would like him to stay on. I think that the most likely scenario is that Paul Hart will return to being in charge of the youth players as Dr. Sulaiman Al Fahim has an interest in developing the academy.
The second candidate is former Lazio, England, Man City, & Mexico boss Sven-Goran Eriksson. Eriksson has been a solid club manager and in my opinion was unlucky to be dumped out of Manchester City at the end of last season. That said he is currently looking for work since being fired by Mexico after it started to look like El Tri could miss the World Cup.
The third candidate is current Croatian boss Slaven Bilić. Bilić is young and came to managerial fame by leading Croatia to Euro 2008 at the expense of England. That said I was unimpressed by his choice of playing Niko Kranjcar as a striker to accommodate Luka Modric in the midfield during the Euros. It is always a risk to appoint a manager without any club experience. Hopefully, if he gets the job, he will be like Mark Hughes or Gianfranco Zola who both made successful club management debuts in the Premier League.
I was surprised to see that a fourth candidate might be Harry Redknapp! This move would be a disaster. Harry quit us and moved to Southampton and then we brought him back. I thought it was a bad idea and it took a long time to get used to the idea of him being our manager again. Then Harry quit us again for Spurs, if we brought him back again it would make a mockery of all of us as fans. If Pompey are foolish enough to offer him the job I hope that he has enough sense not to come back.
A fifth candidate has now emerged, the former Fiorentina & Inter Milan boss Roberto Mancini. He has wealth of club experience and trophies to his name. He was sacked by Inter after winning a third straight Serie A title because of his failure to win the Champions League. I think that he would be an excellent hire.
I imagine that Portsmouth will announce who will be charge sometime in the next few weeks and I have no idea who it will be but I would guess that it would be either Mancini, Eriksson or Bilić. Though as we have seen with Harry moving to Spurs and Bruce moving to Sunderland it really could be anyone.
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