Michael Pantling konluderer med at vi bør være ganske fornøyd med Pompeys progresjon det siste året.
Av: MICHAEL PANTLING
MENINGER: Michael Pantling er som kjent den av våre medlemmer som oftest ser Pompey live. Han har også skrevet flere innlegg tidligere i sesongen der han deler sine tanker om Pompey. Her er Michaels tanker ved sesongslutt 2017/18.
Overall I think we should be fairly happy with Pompey’s progression from a top League 2 to a “top half” League 1 side.
Whilst Pompey managed to hold their own against the majority of League 1 clubs, with the exception of good performances against Wigan, our efforts against the other “Top 6” clubs highlighted our shortcomings and inconsistencies.
The “Top 6” were dominated by the 3 clubs who were relegated from the Championship last season and it can come as no surprise that both Wigan and Blackburn achieved automatic promotion. I suspect that Shrewsbury might just make it via the play offs but Rotherham / Scunthorpe could spoil it. Pompey are still a long way from their standards and will have to recruit heavily to bring us up to their level and have a realistic chance of even reaching the play offs next season. Our flirtation with the play offs was more a function of the schedule with us playing against “lesser” teams for a while as opposed to a sustained performance and we fell apart when it really mattered. Charlton who beat us so convincingly were easily brushed aside in the play-offs and provide a further marker of what needs to be done.
Kenny Jacket has now cleared out most of the players who he didn’t feel fitted his style of play. I was a little sad to see Naismith go but his performances were nowhere near as good as last season and despite having some good moments and a bit of imagination these rarely lasted for a whole match. Connor Chaplin’s future also seems t be in question (in the News) and he too has only played a bit part this season.
On the positive side I’m happy that Haunstrup, Close, Bass and hopefully May still have positive futures although Bass looks likely to remain 3rd choice keeper for a while to come.
The return of Rose can only be a positive thing but there still needs to be experienced cover.
Lots of gossip about Clarke going but if he does it should still bring some money in and hopefully that will be in addition to the already allocated budget. For me, he is one of the few who could actually do OK in the Championship.
Unless there is significant investment I suspect that we will only managed to do slightly better next season but still not be in a position to mount a serious challenge next season – Shrewsbury are a good example of a team who have built up steadily. That would suit the owners strategy.
It will be interesting to see if we can attract some of the loanees back as we were very unlucky with injuries. Henderson in particular could be what we need but is clearly a big risk.
We cannot rely on Brett Pitman alone – our opponents will simply try to mark him out of the game and speed is not his big strength.
I still remain convinced that Jacket knows what he is doing and if given the necessary support from our owners is capable of getting us back to the Championship at some time in the, hopefully, not too distant future.
An interesting summer awaits – Play Up!
