Back in August 2013 the season review supplement in "WSC" had each 2nd Division team's representative nominate Portsmouth as runaway favourites for promotion. It's funny how your season has turned out and the fact that two candidates for the manager's vacancy before Barker was appointed were alleged to have been rejected for suggesting that you were in a relegation battle. I think it is pretty clear that you will struggle to pull yourselves in to mid-table yet I think Northampton are as good as down and there are plenty f other teams in the mix to enable you to avoid the drop. That said, you seem to be able to shoot yourself in the foot so effectively that there I still a risk even if you are too big a team for non-league football. If Portsmouth get relegated again, I think your club can only blame itself and your rivals in the relegation battle should not really be causing you sleepless nights as they are so poor. It is quite funny as a Saints fan to see your in this kind of predicament and the PFC supporting colleagues at work hardly seem to have any fight in them to counter the suggestion that their team is hopeless. Back in the summer everyone connected with Portsmouth seemed pleased just to have a team yet I expect you all anticipated instant promotion. The first game against Oxford must have been a major shock. I don't think anyone could have predicted this season being so appalling. As I have commented here before, I feel that, for the good of the game, you do need to be successful and show that community clubs can deliver. From what I hear on Radio Solent or have read in the newspapers, it really seems that the people running your club have little idea as to how to achieve this and stories that players seemed to be allowed to train if they wanted is suggestive that the regime installed is pretty relaxed or even lax. Whilst I appreciate that money is largely unavailable, your support should generate better revenues than your fellows in division two and it is odd that you haven't managed to attract better players purely on the strength of the club's reputation and historic standing. You may be in the doldrums but let's not forget Portsmouth as a "big" club and the most -passionately supported along the whole of the South coast. Barker seems to be making some peculiar decisions and letting Connolly leave for Oxford seems perverse. He was still very good player in his last days at Saints. Last night someone on the radio suggested that your board was clueless. From an outsiders point of view, the failure to even compete for a play off place let alone being mixed up in a relegation battle is suggestive that there is a problem with your set up. Whilst I am appreciate that your directors budgeted for a mid-table position, I can't see how the current regime can deliver a promotion push next season. You seem stuck in this division for the long haul and although must independent football fans wanted the community club experiment to be a success and maybe usher in an alternative model to that which has exposed so many teams to financial ruin, perhaps it is now time to get some professional experience / proper finance in place so that Portsmouth can gain the kind of stature that the club merits. To be honest, scrapping against the likes of Torquay is a sign of desperation that demonstrates something is amiss. I'm staggered at how poorly you have done this season whereas you should be playing mid-table Championship football at the very least. I doesn't look like the Supporter's Trust is capable to restoring the club's fortunes to some less embarrassing that current circumstances let alone putting the club on a footing where it truly belongs in the football hierarchy. I'm surprised that the national press has not given this greater coverage as the Trust is a brave and new experiment and perhaps more newsworthy in relation to the game at a national level than the constant bickering of Mourinho or Wenger.
Sums things up nicely Ian. Training is much tougher and well organised now under Richie Barker, compared to when Guy was in charge. The players are much fitter now, but still not completely gelling as a team. It will come, hopefully before the end of the season, otherwise we are in major trouble.
As far as Connelly is concerned I'm pretty glad he's gone. Undoubted talent at this level but clearly causing havoc here and 75% of the games I've seen him feature in he looked 50 years old. Not sure how many of the rumours are true but it sounds like he's had bust ups with a few players including refusing to play with agyemang. Adds up really because you can't see why else he would be loaned out. My expectations this season were for a mid table finish with the possibility of a play off push depending how things panned out. The reality of it is at the start of the season we had a bottom 8 budget and an inexperienced coach running a team of players that no one else wanted. The budget has been adjusted now and believed to be around 10th in the league. Given time that is still an achievable league position as well. The set up we have needs to be seen as a very long haul and not a quick fix. I know its far from ideal but if we can stabilise and stay put in league 2 for another 3 seasons the legacy debts will be payed off and we will find ourself with a huge budget in comparison to teams around us without third party funding! That's the whole idea of it is it not? To be truly self sufficient and spending only what is made by the club.
Last Saturday the Manager of our opponents said that this "team" picked up the FA cup 5 years ago. Wrong! That team is long gone. This team was picked by Guy Whittingham and Steve Allen (physio) just before the summer. They were all free agents and several of them released by their clubs with injuries (aka Tom Craddock who is spending his first year with us out injured). Guy was quite clear that he was looking for the 'right characters' to form his team - I can't help thinking that he was looking for characters similar to himself, laid back and relaxed. But he had the mental strength to work hard, not enough of these players do. Redknapp used to say "down to the bare bones" - well that's what we took over. There was no money and only a handful of fans who funded it from their own pockets for several months kept the liquidator away. Wave after wave of redundancies destroyed the actual business and we played a season of 50+ players on month-to-month contracts. The board had no choice really, with the core staff in place they had to work on getting the business back on track - so they would have had to rely on the 'football people' ie Guy and the backroom staff for the on-field matters. All this was fair enough. Then we had the euphoria of taking over the club and it didn't help that suddenly we were nailed on certainties to walk the league - expectations were raised, but what was that based on? A large gate? Well the fans don't step over the white line on match day. The players do. All the fans can do is shout encouragement - which is what we did, until finally our patience snapped with the dross that was being served up week in week out. Guy was the wrong appointment. So many fans knew that, but it was an appointment from the heart not from the head. He was a rookie manager and instead of getting in an experienced 2iC he surrounded himself with other rookies. The players looked shot of confidence, Guy admitted he didn't know who is best back four were so they never had time to settle, he kept messing about with the goalie, and in the end it looked like he was really out of his depth. The board kept giving him more and more money then took action as soon as they could see that it was going badly wrong. Subsequently we discover that, amongst other things, training was a relaxed affair and there wasn't a great deal going on leading to players being unfit and losing confidence. As for Connolly - rumours are that he was a dressing room moaner. He holds the highest level coaching badges, so I can imagine he believed he could do a better job. He's probably right. Guy at least gave him a coaching role. Barker took that back? He should never have been interviewed, someone should have taken him aside and advised him not to apply for the job at this point, they were looking for an experienced Manager, not another rookie. Barker brought Steve Coppell with him. If I was on the board I would have appointed Barker just to get Coppell on board. Is Barker the right appointment? The jury is still out on that, but he has to be given time. As do the board. Anyone who thought that the 'bare-bones' business would be sorted out within months is deluded. Given time I believe we will thrive. But the board is on a steep learning curve. It may be new and inexperienced but I don't agree they are clueless. We aren't "too big to fail" - banks may be, but football clubs? I think we are following the laws of physics - what goes up must come down.......... before we bounce back up again.
Absolutely 100% correctomondo ............it was only the delusional and blind that felt we were certs for a top 7 finish, we were a club at the point of ruin, we are starting from the bottom of the FL, just one click away from the exit door........and yet there is still a huge fan element that think we have some god given right to just walk this league.........with what? or who? a bunch of out of contract players that are not fit and not payed for months on end.........I like many get really down when we loose or throw away a lead..........but that is because i am a fan,and love my club.......which ever league we are in!
3rd Eye Thanks for your informed response. I've just been reading the latest edition of "When Saturday comes" to which I subscribe and as well as an article on Saints v Pompey rivalry, there is a very good piece outlining the plight of Stockport County who fell out of the football league several seasons back and now find themselves in the Conference North. I didn't realise that they had been another club run by a supporter's trust. I would suggest that their plight has been even more catastrophic than Pompey's. My sister lives near Stockport and I have watched them when they were in the second tier as well as seeing another game when they imploded after a matter of seconds against Wimbledon. Stockport are like a comedy of errors and a lesson in how not to run of football club. On the two occasions I've watched them they have been poor and my brother in law's brother in law has been a season ticket holder for as long as I have known him. We always say that Stockport fans much be the truest fans of all because they rarely have anything to cheer and seem to face crisis after crisis. I think your comment about getting Barker on board to benefit from Coppell's experience is a valid one although I am not convinced that he is really cut out for anything higher than Div One these days. It is amazing that having acquired the club there does seem to be an absence of football expertise on the board and I think getting an experienced face in Coppell to consult is a move that should , perhaps, have been made much earlier. I can't think of any other profession where a lack of expertise should be quite so overlooked. The failure to organise proper training sessions should have been addressed far earlier too. As I said, I think all genuine football fans would like to see supporter's trusts succeed and I hope Portsmouth's own trust ultimately succeeds. Once again, good to read your response.
Poor Stockport. It's ridiculous that they're playing in the Conference North. If it's anything like the Conference South, their stadium alone is lightyears ahead of everyone else'. There was a girl I fancied who was a Stockport fan. We'd been texting during a match, I was at Fratton Park and she was at Stockport's ground and she'd texted that the score was 1-1, this was about a 15 or so minutes left. Then I texted her back a bit later saying "At least you're not losing!", not realising that whoever they were playing had scored 3 times in the last ten minutes to win 4-1. Opps! That was a footballing faux pas if ever there was one!
Sounds like Joe Devera has a possible knee injury, which could sideline him for a while. At least we have Sonny Bradley, Basildon Bondz, and Jack Watmough in reserve. Shame though, as he and Ben Chorley appeared to be playing well together.
I agree - it's like having a squad of "Sicknotes" Why, oh why for example did we sign Tom Craddock with his injury record ?
