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Pompey transfer disappointment
Thursday, 03/02/2011
by S.J. Maskell, Shoot's Portsmouth blogger
Last week, fans' representatives from SOS Pompey met club CEO David Lampitt. The fans’ protest group was seeking clarity and transparency on the way the club was being run after confusing messages from the club since the new owner came in.
The club have said everything from, ‘we are pushing for promotion,’ through ‘fans will have a nice surprise’ to ‘we have to operate within our means’. Steve Cotterill has had difficulty getting answers from the owners regarding squad building.
Fans just want a clear picture of where the club stands, rather than confusing messages. Their unhappiness is not about the quality of the squad but the uncertainty of the club’s future.
Unfortunately, the quality of the threadbare squad plays a part in that future. It doesn’t stand up to the problems caused by suspensions and injuries. Recent poor results make this clear.
Mr Lampitt indicated he knew that the club had ground to make up in the winning of the fans’ trust. He was frank about the contractual situation with Brown and Hughes – that things were at an ‘impasse’. He was hoping that one or both might leave during the window.
He clarified that little money had been put into the club by the owners. Attempts are being made to enhance the club as an efficient business venture. In this respect squad building becomes an issue. Lampitt said that Cotterill would be assisted in this process by the signing of two permanent players in this window. In the summer this would improve with Steve able to build his side without transfer restrictions.
SOS representatives felt it worthwhile to wait out the transfer window. Strengthening the squad looked promising and would help keep us in the Championship.
So, what happened? On the last day of the window John Utaka (pictured) signed for Montpellier for an undisclosed fee.
Players in? Zero! No one wanted to come. Perhaps playing for PFC is an unattractive proposition at the moment.
There are 19 in the squad. One is injured long term, two can’t play for contractual reasons. We have lost our main pace player. The club say there is still the loan window to come.
Fans will be meeting in Frogmore Road at 2pm Saturday to make their feelings about the owners known.
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Exgaffer
Thursday, 03/02/2011
The first point to make is that SOS Pompey only represent a tiny minority of Pompey fans. Even the much larger Pompey Supporters’ Trust only boast about 2500 members, so neither group can claim to speak for the fans. Have a look at the messageboards and you will see there is a lot of opposition to this demonstration. Unfortunately the actions of these minorities will be siezed on by the media and the club’s name will be dragged through the mud AGAIN. As Pompey fans none of us is exactly ecstatic at the situation the club finds itself in but having escaped liquidation by a whisker, a lot of us are just pleased to have a club to support. The club claims John Utaka wanted to leave (I haven’t spoken to him so I don’t know if this is true or not), if that is the case there wasn’t much point trying to keep him. I understand that efforts were made to sign players but they either didn’t want to come or were unavailable. SOS Pompey haven’t said what they hope to achieve with this demonstration. They bang on about ‘transparency’ and being lied to but no business is going to reveal it’s hand to anyone, this just plays into the hands of it’s competitors. In any event I think DL has been as honest as he can be under the circumstances and communicates with fans a lot more that most chief executives do. Balram Chanrai has already said he wants to get rid of the club and doesn’t want to invest any more money, at least he’s been up front about it. Some fans seem to be expecting him to give the club away but much as we’d all like this to happen, in the real world businessmen very rarely give anthing away. Those people who intend to demonstrate should think long and hard about it, in my opinion their energy would be much better expended getting behind the team.