Michael Pantling tror Pompey kan gjøre det bedre kommende sesong enn forrige sesongs 16. plass. Her er hans tanker fire dager før seriestart.

MENINGER: Vår medlem nummer 38, Michael Pantling, er bosatt i Danmark, men pleier å reise over til England for å se Pompey flere ganger i sesongen enn noen andre av våre medlemmer.

Han deler jevnlig sine tanker og meninger om Pompey med oss. Denne gangen før seriestart 2025/26.

LES OGSÅ: – 16. plass denne sesongen var en suksess

A Bright New Start

Although Pompey were alright in the end, 2024-2025 was an unwanted dose of reality. I don’t believe that any of us realized how hard it was going to be to succeed in the Championship which many consider to be our historical “natural home”. Times have clearly changed and there is much more money around in football generally and in particular for us in the Championship.

The newly promoted Birmingham and Wrexham spent previously unheard of sums in League 1 and have continued in the closed season showing intent not simply to stay in the Championship but to challenge the best at the top.

The three relegated teams all have pliantly of players with experience of both the Premiership and Championship together with healthy bank balances from both parachute payments and the inevitable sale of some of their best players. Of the three, I think Leicester will have the best chance of bouncing back first time around. Ipswich have over-performed during the past couple of seasons and I don’t expect their luck to continue but they will be in the top 10. I really do not know how “our friends down the road” will do other than a top 10.

Sheffield United were unlucky last season and I expect them to end up in the top 5 again this season.

Middlesborough and Coventry pushed hard and will no doubt do the same this year.

I suspect that Charlton, Hull, Derby and Sheffield Wednesday will struggle this season.

Bortekampene vil være avgjørende

As for Pompey, it is going to be another challenging season and we will most likely be relying on our home form in order to do well. How well will very much depend on improving our away performances. I am still very satisfied with our manager and his success is clearly recognised by other clubs and our owners will have to be careful to keep him.

I still think that the fairly cautious approach of our owners is admirable – we have a solid well-functioning club but we cannot afford to get relegated and I would like to see some more spending on players with recognised experience at our level. Overall, Matt Richie did well last season but his availability was an issue at times. While I appreciate his desire for first team football, nobody can expect guarantees in that regard, the manager has to consider the fittest player in the best form to ensure success of the team. I’m now concerned that Marlon Pack might fade as the season goes on but it is good to see John Swift back at Pompey with all of his experience.

I was very surprised to see Paddy Lane go to Reading, I thought he did commendably and had a bright future. Christian Saydee was ok but realistically we need better players at this level.

We must have taken a bit of a chance with Nicolas Schmid and he has been a huge success -let us hope that this continues.

We struggled without Colby Bishop at the start of last season and it is a pity he has already picked up an injury. I think we could do with a further experienced forward and should spend some money to get one.

All in all we have a good enough team to stay up again and do slightly better this season. If we really want to challenge for a playoff spot them we need to spend.

It will be very telling how we do against Oxford on Saturday – we really need to pick up some away points to get the season off on a good start.

PuP

Nicolas Schmid.