Worrying times at Fratton Park as things go from bad to worse for Pompey

Premier League / Jaymes Monte / 08 November 2009 / 2 Comments

Paul Hart faces an uphill battle to get his group of inconsistent players to perform at a high enough level to ensure safety this season.

"Whilst Portsmouth have been extremely unlucky in some matches, extremely wasteful in others and just downright awful in many, they are marooned at the foot of the table for a reason."

It is little over a year since Harry Redknapp deserted a sinking ship and exchanged his Fratton Park dugout for the relative financial comforts of White Hart Lane. Jaymes Monte takes a look at where it all went wrong for Pompey and where they can go from here....

Little did the Portsmouth faithful know that winning their first major trophy in over 50 years would be the beginning of a cataclysmic fall from grace. However, after winning the 2008 FA Cup and finishing 8th in the Premier League things have gone from bad to worse on the South coast.

Just two months into the 2008/09 Premier League season Harry Redknapp cleared his Fratton Park desk for the second time in five years. A £5million compensation package had been agreed between the Portsmouth and Tottenham boards and it appeared that Redknapp was leaving for the opportunity to manage a bigger club.

However, it didn't take long for the extent of Portsmouth's problems to become evident for all to see. Tony Adams was promoted from within and installed as the new manager, an appointment which even at the time exhibited the traits of a club where something just wasn't right. Results and performances took a turn for the worse and the club were in a downward spiral.

The sale of the clubs two most influential players - Lassana Diarra and Jermain Defoe - in the January transfer window proved to be the catalyst of a fire sale. It quickly became clear that Harry Redknapp had left yet another club in financial ruin.

The result is a squad that is now unrecognisable to the one that paraded the FA Cup around the Wembley turf just over a year ago. Now Paul Hart has assembled a group of extremely volatile players and relegation from the Premier League is an increasingly distinct possibility.

Last week captain Aaron Mokoena claimed that Portsmouth were too good to go down, a belief that Newcastle fans clung so desperately and hopelessly to last season. Quite simply, football does not work like that. Whilst Portsmouth have been extremely unlucky in some matches, extremely wasteful in others and just downright awful in many, they are marooned at the foot of the table for a reason.

The players that they have are too inconsistent. They can look world beaters one minute as they did when it all came together against Wigan last week but their Jekyll and Hyde tendencies were all too evident against Blackburn this weekend. Going in at half-time they were leading 1-0 and in complete control of the game, at the end of the 90 minutes they were staring a ninth league defeat of the season square in the face.

Consistency has been the cornerstone for success at England's most successful clubs throughout history. However, with players of the ilk of Kevin-Prince Boateng, Aruna Dindane and Frederic Piquionne Portsmouth do not have any level of consistency and I believe they are in serious trouble this season.

Layers at [1.8] for Pompey to be relegated will be clinging to the possibility of Paul Hart being given a substantial war chest to spend on players in the January transfer window. Yet even that glimmer of hope was given a potentially devastating blow last week as the club was handed a transfer embargo due to transfer debts owed to other English clubs.

As a Sunderland fan I am all too aware of the premise that you often have to hit rock bottom before you can bounce back. Although it won't give Portsmouth fans much comfort at this stage, Sunderland and even more so Manchester City are prime examples of how it can be done. However teams like Bradford and Luton are all too realistic illustrations of how drastically it can go wrong and unfortunately for them I feel Pompey could sink a lot lower before they begin to see any shoots of recovery.

Comments (2)

1. Matt | 08 November 2009

   How has Pompey's situation got anything to do with Harry? "It quickly became clear that Harry Redknapp had left yet another club in financial ruin." errr, no. Harry only ever got good players in for relatively cheap, got them up the Premier League (which would've brought a healthy financial return), into Europe & an FA Cup (both of which would mean more money). The players Harry brought to Pompey have virtually all been sold for quite a substantial amount more than they paid in the 1st place. In fact, the financial problems were already there & Spurs had still not bee paid for Mendes several years after he left the Lane! Harry is a football manager, not an accountant. Pompey's woes are entirely down to how thew club has been run & that is the chairman & the board's responsibility. If anything, Harry did his absolute best for them & even by leaving he got them £5m, the most compensation ever paid out for a manager.

2. Jamie | 08 November 2009

   I think the author may have a point. Is it entirely coincidental that every club that Harry has managed is either currently in financial trouble or has been at one stage since his departure?