Cash strapped and losing their best players, it is no wonder why most are earmarking Pompey to be embroiled in a relegation battle come may 2010. Currently, Betfair have them fifth in line to face the chop at 5/2, behind Burnley at 4/6, Hull at 10/11, Birmingham at 11/10 and at Wolves at 7/4.
But will they actually be relegated?
On the one hand, Portsmouth have already lost two of their best players this season - Peter Crouch who joined Spurs earlier in the week and Glen Johnson who signed for Liverpool earlier in the summer - and must worrying the Pompey fans the most are players manager Paul Hart has brought in to replace them.
For Johnson, Hart signed 33 year old former Liverpool right-back Steve Finnan on a free transfer and for Crouch they announced today the loan signing of 30 Lyon striker Frederic Piquionne. Are those signings good enough to keep Pompey alive? Can they compete at Premiership level? Only will tell, but deep down most will judge this somewhat foreboding considering the few quality players Portsmouth still have at their disposal.
To make matters worse, signs of unrest between the Portsmouth players have begun to surface, with David Nugent and Marc Wilson fined two weeks' wages after a "serious breach of club discipline." Portsmouth refused to dwell on the incident stating "The matter has been dealt with internally and there will be no further comment."
On plus side, the have been reports that Sulaiman Al Fahim’s takeover of the club is still going ahead, despite recent comments suggesting the deal has hit stumbling blocks with the club issuing a statement saying "He remains committed to completing the acquisition of Portsmouth FC as soon as possible." However, casting further doubt on the matter, the club also released a statement saying "While it is our intention to add strength to the existing squad we cannot rule out the possibility of having to sell more players should the takeover not happen."
So what should we take from all of this?
From what I can tell Portsmouth's season hinges on Al Fahim's takeover bid going through and the club getting enough funds behind them to at least cling onto the few remaining quality players they've got left, if not they could find themselves in a relegation battle a lot sooner than May and they'll very likely lose.
What do you think?
relegation Archives
Posted by KJB on 5th August 2009 @ 19:35pm | Tagged under: relegation |
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