What Now for Portsmouth?
Posted on | May 20, 2009 | No Comments
Portsmouth have secured their Premier League status for another season, but Portsmouth supporters have endured a turgid, grinding conclusion to the campaign. What have Pompey got to look forward to? At the moment the answer is, we just don’t know. There are probably three main scenarios, with all the possible varaiations, shades, and degrees in between.
Firstly, a new investor enters with money to spend. Sven is secured, and the buying begins. Johnson and Crouch, who knows him of old, are persuaded to stay. Pompey swagger their way to an unbeaten August and remain unbeaten until October. As the season progresses, we fade slightly, but progress to the FA Cup semi finals, where we are soundly beaten by Chelsea. We finish 8th, but the following season promises much and the fans are enamoured with the Swede (recall City fans chanting his name as they cruised to a 3-1 win over Pompey in April 08). Unlikely scenario, but surely the best we could hope for?
Certainly better than scenario two. No buyer, costs cut. But crucially, the situation is worse than we were led to believe. The players see this and, one by one, make their excuses and leave. Confidence is smashed, and the club begins its inevitable journey to the Championship, with much planning for it along the way. This is undoubtedly the nightmare scenario, but it could happen.
The third way, I am increasingly convinced, is perhaps the best, buyer or no buyer. The no-buyer version assumes that the financial situation at the club has been largely stabilised already (the buyer achieves this with reasonable investment in players on top), or at least that following an offloading of the dead wood, funds are released. Our talented, motivated manager (be it Paul Hart or otherwise) then gels the remaining senior players with talented youngsters and a few intelligent buys. The Fratton Park crowd, sensing that we are up against it, takes the season-long home atmosphere to a new level, and we are nigh-on invincible at Fratton Park.
This future has a number of things going for it. We have a manager with something to prove, an improved atmosphere at home games, good football to watch, and we know that we are not paying over the odds for people who don’t really care about the club. We even have Linvoy as our ambassador! The club feels like it is ours. Unfortunately, with the way the Premier League is financially at the moment, this is all we can really hope for.
On the subject of the manager, it looks increasingly likely that Paul Hart will be that man. He deserves congratulations for completing the job he was given, but an impressive display even in the single remaining game against Wigan on Sunday would go a long way to easing the fans’ concerns about the brand of football we have had to witness to get there. Confirmation that Brian Kidd was to remain alongside him would also have a similar effect.
Back to the subject of hope. The third way does admittedly involve a portion of this. But football is all about hopes and dreams. Ask anyone who was at Wembley this time last year. We can hope that players would be persuaded to stay at a passionate club moving forward as opposed to our cynical realisation that they are more likely to go to a bigger club who can pay them more money. But hope is always there in football, especially every Saturday at 3 O’clock (or Monday at 8.05). We know that better than anyone at Pompey despite our expreiences of the last 20 or so years (and longer).
Moves are afoot to maximise the number of local players making it to first teams and there is the expansion of the academy system throughout football. As long as people still have these ideas, there may be a time in the future when our football league can be made truly competitive again.
Tags: Brian Kidd > Fratton Park > Linvoy Primus > Paul Hart > Pompey > Portsmouth > Portsmouth's future > Premier League > Wigan
Comments
Leave a Reply