For en lettelse

Michael Pantling oppsummerer sesongen, ser fram mot neste sesong og deler sine tanker om blant annet John Mousinho og våre naboer som mistet finaleplassen i playoff.

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.

LES OGSÅ: Det er ikke over ennå

 

Kan vi beholde Mousinho?

Once again Pompey managed a good (exceptional) run at the end of the season to save our place in the Championship. Getting relegated would have been too much to bear. We could all have done without the stress.

My immediate concern is whether we can keep Mousinho. Unless something happens with our player budget Pompey are likely to be in exactly the same position next season. Mousinho has demonstrated that he has talent and he will also have ambition. It cannot be particularly attractive for him to have the prospect of yet another relegation battle. He has been regularly linked with other clubs with better spending power. I hope we can persuade him to stay.

I do not think that anybody can say Pompey’s recruitment, with the exception of Segecic, has been an astounding success. Yes we have had many injured players but that is football. Where are the home grown players these days? I can remember in the darkest days of recent years Pompey produced the likes of: Jed Wallace, Jack Watmough, Joel Ward and Adam Webster. Connor Chaplin is one of the few recent players to succeed.

At least Pompey are in the Championship for the forthcoming season and that should be something to look forward to. However, if nothing changes we will be doing well if we cand end up anywhere above 15 th . As we have seen there are no easy matches at this level but financial consideration see to have played as big a part as performance on the pitch when considering the likes of Sheffield Wednesday and Leicester.

I would expect Lincoln to struggle but Cardiff might do better. It is really going to be tough at the top of the Championship with th usual suspects joined by Wolves and Burnley plus West Ham (or Spurs). Birmingham established themselves well and Wrexham have a lot of money behind them. West Brom and Blackburn have similar issues to Pompey. I cannot see QPR doing anything much and Norwich could be the dark horse next season.

What a mess!

Then we have the little matter of the final promotion spot to the Premier League. What a mess. Hull were consistent throughout and deserved a play-off place. We held our own against Southampton but beat Middlesborough twice.

What Southampton did was out and out cheating not only against Middlesborough but a number of other clubs as well and yes the deserved to be punished. I am less certain that their expulsion from the play-offs and a 4 point deduction was proportionate. It is in effect a fine of potentially £150-200 million which is astronomical compared with fines other clubs have had for financial wrongdoing.

One only has to look at the likes Manchester City and Chelsea who have (allegedly) blatantly ignored the (Premiership) rules and until now have got away with it unpunished not least because of their ability to pay for hugely expensive legal team and used the appeal system to keep putting things off.

Southampton admitted that they did something wrong and stupid and have acted internally as well, but in reality they didn’t actually benefit from it. The people who have suffered the most are the ordinary fans who are blameless irrespective of them supporting Southampton and I have a good deal of sympathy for them. The uncertainty about the fixture proceeding will have caused a lot of stress for Hull fans if they had booked non-refundable accommodation and travel etc.

Yes we all want fair play but there should be more even handedness and consistency in how this judged and applied.