Transfer Rumours Summer 2025 Transfer Thread…

Acun has left Fenerbahce. We might get some transfers done early this year

 

That's where you and I differ. He hasn't kicked on and if he were in our plans he wouldn't have been loaned out twice for a grand total of 17 lower league appearances.

 

Remove the word "early" and it's still true.

 

Thanks everyone except Jose. Interesting...

 

I think he demonstrably has kicked on and I think you're being a bit harsh with his appearances. He had an injury which kept him out a lot at Fleetwood and he was only at Wycombe for the second half of the season, where presumably he made most of those appearances.

 

Acun does have a good relationship with Westerlo’s owner but the only way I see us getting Frigan would be something like £5 million cash + someone like Ömür + a big sell-on clause.

 

The Westerlo thing is a bit complicated.

Basically, the owner of Westerlo, Oktay Ercan, bought the club and financed them to promotion and then top flight stability. Westerlo itself only has a population of about 25000 people, you could literally fit them all into our ground, so it was a bit of a shock when he took over and people were apparently a bit sus about why this incredibly wealthy military contractor with no ties to the area suddenly pitched up and took over.

Ercan is financed by his company SUR International Investments, a Qatari company that he founded and is funded by the Qatari government. He worked under that Sudanese dictator Omar el Béchir, but apparently didn't join in with the politics; basically he just harvested resources from a war torn country.

The guy he got to run the club, essentially their version of Tan Kesler, is an agent called Hasan Cetinkaya, a former Swedish footballer and current CEO of HCM Sports (who have some very high profile clients, Viktor Gyokeres, Frenkie de Jong and Denis Zakaria to name but a few). That's who Acun is friends with and that's where our connection comes from. Surprised we don't have a pre season friendly lined up with them.

 

That would probably work out, actually.

 

Hasan Cetinkaya is also former director in Fenerbahce until 2019 if I am not mistaken, that's the source of connection. He was director of Genclerbirligi - Ankaraspor and Gaziantepspor between 2003 to 2009 before his switch to Fenerbahce.

Director role is called as "manager" in Turkey, basically handles paperwork and communication of transfers and responsible from arranging friendlies and camps (not choosing location but more related to logistics, how many people will travel, how much it will cost etc.)

Basically in Turkey there are two types of roles called manager, agent of a football players and people acting like agent/director of clubs, both called managers unlike UK. For example Mourinho is called as technical director instead of manager.

 

He’s very limited on the ball and was poor in big moments under Tim too often. Not good enough, as he’s consistently proven. I’d get rid.

 

Got to agree with this. I think Simons will have a decent career and would be good back up. Similar to Drameh ,Slater, Burstow, Joseph and a few others. I just hope the incoming are actually better and that not always been the case recently

 

12. Hardly first name on the team sheet. In L1.

Those saying he didn't get a chance here he's played 30 odd games.

And Slater has consistently been preferred under a number of different coaches.

 

Wheres simons meant to be going?

I can see him having a good championship career in a few seasons

But we cant keep every single player
I dont think hes fully ready to be a consistent starter yet
So what do we do

 

Too much fact and sense in one post will get him all giddy, I just ignore it now.

 

Objectivity not your strong point?

Fact: he's been loaned out twice, under 2 different managers to league 1 and only been played 17 times by 2 league 1 managers.

Opinion: He'll come good. We shouldn't sell.

Also opinion: Nothing to suggest he will. He's going into his last year, Offload whilst we can still get a return.

You can thank me later.

 

It's partly this I think, but mostly I just don't think the club rate him that highly. We're overloaded in the central midfield area at present and if we're signing Zambrano, then that's Zambrano, Puerta, Slater, Palmer, Matazo, Mehlem*, Omur* and Simons we've got, not to mention Rocco Coyle and Nathan Tinsdale waiting to make the step up, Reda Laalaoui coming in and anybody else we might buy. If you were to rank Simons in there, he wouldn't be anywhere near the top so how does the club justify keeping/paying him for another year with limited first team opportunities/a lower league loan vs selling him now and getting a fee for him?

It's disappointing it didn't work out; he will go on to be a decent footballer and I hope we're putting sell on fees into these deals because I genuinely think he'll end up a bit like Cairney. He's got the talent, he's just unfortunate that he works for an owner that doesn't have the patience to wait for him to be good enough.


*Granted these might/will leave, but as it stands they're still here.

 

Pompey not given up on Abu Kamara wearing royal blue again


In fact, it’s not overstating the situation to say the club haven’t given up hope of the man who bagged 10 goals and 10 assists at PO4 one day wearing royal blue again.

Regardless of that scenario, Kamara and his Hull team-mates now have a new head coach to impress after the appointment of Bosnian Sergej Jakirovic today. Jakirovic is the man who is replacing Ruben Selles, who lost his job last month despite keeping the Tigers up on the final day with their 1-1 draw at PO4.

With their level of spending last term that wasn’t deemed good enough by owner Acun Ilcali, with Jakirovic his sixth appointment since acquiring the club for £30m in January 2022.

To subscribe to The Portsmouth News’ award-winning Pompey coverage click HERE

Kamara’s season at the MKM Stadium reflected his club’s, after they blew Pompey’s interest out of the water by signing the Londoner from Norwich for £4.5m.

He returned five league goals and three assists in a testing period in which he was made to take part in a slightly bizarre press conference, where he apologised for responding with a heart emoji to Paddy Lane scoring against Swansea on New Year’s Day. That came in the wake of Hull being beaten by Middlesbrough by a late winner, which Kamara was deemed to be partly at fault for.

 

**** me PO4 (whatever that means), let it go.

That interview with Abu and Selles has really got to them.

 

He's a good striker of the ball. Scored two goals from the edge of the box for us last season and also smashed the crossbar with a rocket against WBA. If our other midfielders could lace it like that we'd have scored a few more goals, but most of them can't. Not saying he's a world beater and there is more to it than just shooting but I think he's one who gets unfairly pigeon holed to an extent with the 'limited' thing.

 

I think even €5 million for Frigan is too much, looks very average