An Arrest and little Development

An arrest...

Another Pompey owner subject to an arrest warrant. Joining Mandaric and Gaydamak in an incredible series of events. It seems simply that the club is rotten to the core. How surprised should we be? Why would any law abiding citizen want to own the money drain of a football club? The motivations of these random foreign owners always strikes me as peculiar and if they are not going to court publicity, like Milan to boost their egos, what do quiet owners, like ours, get out of the money they put in?

I am no financial journalist, but the the best explanation of the current situation I have seen was written by SJMaskell and can be found here. He tells the tale of financial irregularity and assassination attempt against Antonov and his family by Chechen mafia. Antonov is Pompey chairman – he owns 75% of PFC. Dubov has made the only comment to UK media with a throw away line of working hard to save the business, although he did not specify whether or not he was talking about CSI. Whether or not Antonov is guilty, PFC and our reputation could do without this. I have written previously about how we are seen by some to have got away lightly with our first bout of overspending – and the club must now be in serious peril again, if 75% of our funding is with a man who is on bail, and who the BBC are reporting has had his assets frozen.

Two points to make, about the naivety of Pompey fans (absolutely myself included) and the attitude of the FA to ownership.

The information about Antonov detailed by Maskell amongst others has been in the public domain since they took control. I remember reading about it, but I shrugged my shoulders, a lot of business men have dubious backgrounds, especially seemingly ones from the former Eastern bloc, who want to sink money into provincial english football clubs that they have few links to – as long as they were going to support our club I didnt mind. There is another article to be written about fans proactivity in ownership of their own clubs and the Pompey Trust have been savvy enough on twitter to attempt to boost their numbers after this latest bout of scandal. I have not yet joined but will research the trust before deciding whether this is a genuine attempt to represent fans or a bit of an old boys network, a small group hoping to take my money to increase their own self-importance

Additionally the football league and its Fit and Proper persons test needs to be re-examined and after our recent series of owners this should not come as a shock to anyone. As I understand the rule (mainly from this Edinburgh University Law school article) Antonov was rightly approved, he was not prohibited by law to be a director of a company, he was not involved in another football club, he did not have any unspent criminal convictions, he was not bankrupt and he has not previously been involved in two football clubs involved in administrations. However he was deemed unfit to run a British bank, his takeover of Saab was disrupted by his reputed links to serious and organised crime, but he is allowed to control a football club, which we all hope is a symbol of our community and home. Surely the test needs to be reassessed.

Pompey fans have themselves to blame. The football league has itself to blame. We blithely accept these white knights – the only solution seems to be fan ownership – but Pompey do not have a large enough, rich enough support to keep the club at the competitive level the fans have come to accept.

And little development

Pompey have made two loan signings, but lost one and I fear at a net loss. George Thorne a 6ft 2 attacking midfielder, England under 18, 17, 16s etc, WBA youngest first team player since the 60s has promise (albeit for two minutes), but he comes in as Abdul Razak returns to Man City – very difficult for us to compare the two – but using the arbitrary measure of where they have ended up, I would rather have a loan player from City than the Baggies. Additionally Joe Mattock has joined, a young player who royally pissed off Leicester fans in the way he manufactured his departure from the foxes (could be interesting if he plays on Saturday) who avoided jailtime after being convicted of punching four people (including a women) in a night club, aged 18. We need a left-back, but more than that we needed a striker, Marc Antone-Fortune was heavily linked, but moved instead to the Willy McCay experiment at Doncaster. So at the end of the loan window we have probably lost something in midfield, gained a defender and missed out on a striker. However WBA twitterer AnthonyDosanjh was very positive about both and claimed Thorne was on the cusp of a WBA starting place, whilst Mattock was performing well before an injury, so maybe not all hope is lost. All in all the club needs good results and soon, if the Watford performance is repeated and with a seemingly unwinnable south coast derby approaching, I think we are right to be worried, here is hoping the home form continues. Play up Pompey.

What a load of rubbish

I do not want this blog to be a series of match reports, but todays game made my blood boil.

The Pompey performance was abject, awful, rubbish, devoid of effort, creativity or skill. Not one player emerged with an ounce of credit. Ward out of his depth, Kitson ineffectual, Norris bypassed and so on. When we were in the Premier league we would often get beaten (away at Villa 3-0 at halftime, away at Arsenal when Chalkias Kostus) but today was against a frankly awful Watford team, this performance is in the same category in my mind as Palace at home when Tiler imploded and the Orient FA Cup defeat.

What made it all the harder to stomach was the expectation. Cotterill and his long-ball tactics have gone, this was a new era with a bright new manager ready to continue the work of Whittingham and Gray into a series of fixtures, as we have previously discussed on this blog, that are kind, including 3 home games (for the 4th best home team in the league) and away fixtures against poor home teams in Watford and Burnley. This was the start of this team fulfilling their potential - building to a season defining derby against Southampton.

The players were rightly booed, (although i wasnt quite ready to join in the chants of your not fit to wear the shirt) and the Pompey fans (who were vocal and numerous) had to entertain themselves with songs of past achievements, this current team do not look like giving us anything to sing about.

I know Liam Lawrence has his critics - his effort levels can be questioned, but his quality is vital for this team - i felt he was missed today. Tactically Appleton has decisions to make. It seems to be that our team has an imbalance of wingers (Erik, Varney and Lawrence - could young Williams be used as a catalyst?) we need to utilise them. Its also damning that to be Kanu seems to be our best attacking threat at present - Benjani looks slow and was offside about a gazzillion times in his second half performance.

How much blame should Appleton take? well its only one week in, we cant blame him but equally if we had won, the papers would have credited his influence with the first away win of the season, therefore this lack of reaction from players, this lack of motivation, the lack of a plan b, has to be at least partially parked at his door. Hypothetically, would this have happened with OGS in charge? there is part of me that thinks not, the players surely would have given him more.

His appointment is easily questioned. He needs to solicit a reaction on Saturday and repay the faith of the board.

Anyway im going to get on with my Saturday night! Lets keep the faith and hope my family members will forgive me my attendance of todays debacle in lieu of them getting quality Christmas presents.

Good luck Mr Appleton...

On October 14th a man departed an important institution under a cloud, a decision that had great potential ramifications for the city of Portsmouth. But as Liam Fox left his position as Defence secretary he was replaced within hours. Meanwhile on the south coast Steve Cotterill left Pompey, however unlike the smooth transition of one of the Governments most important ministries, it has taken until today, 10^th November for Pompey to replace their man. I tweeted just after Cotterill's departure hat the new managerial appointment would be a clear indication of CSI's ambition. Well Appleton's appointment, although a relief, is probably more negative than positive.

I have no special sources at the club, but this is what I think we can say about the managerial search. Lampitt stated on the football league show that the club had identified a short-list in the days after Cotterill's departure and had stuck to it over the past three weeks. He claims the club had over 50 applications but again noted that some of these had been 'more serious than others' (As an aside a friend and I once applied for the England job off our Champ Man Cvs and got a very polite rebuttal clarifying that European experience was a pre-requisite – I wonder if Lampitt would have included this in his 50?) He also clarified at the start of the search that the manager had to have Championship experience and 'understand' Portsmouth.

We know that 'fans favourite' Dave Jones was interested but never interviewed. Sean O'Driscoll was interviewed but then waited two weeks without an answer, Coppell was interviewed and seemingly rejected before finally compensation for Appleton was agreed. However I think we must acknowledge that the clubs first choice (at least) rejected the club – this is the best explanation for the delay and I can only speculate but this is probably a negative sign of ambition and or resources. If a manager is interested enough to speak to the club but then rejects the deal – the budget / ambition must be questionable. The three week delay implies that this may have happened more than once which would be worrying – the People (not the worlds most reputable source) has claimed the sticking point for other managers has been the wages – with Pompey only offering £2,000 pw.

The club have been criticised by some for not making an appointment sooner. But I dont know why, other than fans impatience. The caretaker managers have done a good job (in their six matches in charge Pompey average 1.8 points per game as opposed to SC 0.8 in the preceding 10 games). The international break is also a useful natural break in the season for a new man to come in.

As for Appleton he is an unknown quantity. I asked the nice fold at baggiesblog.co.uk about him. They pointed out that he has steadily risen through WBA's coaching ranks and Woy could have easily replaced him with someone he was more familiar with, but he chose to keep him, and that is a promising endorsement from a man well respected in the football world. But I have previously spoken about the need for excitement to be injected into Fratton Park and Appleton's appointment would not automatically bring that in the same way as the other inexperienced candidate OGS would have. However the fixture list has been relatively kind, the upcoming games include three home games out of the next five and Pompey have the 4^th best home record in the Championship. The Southampton game is on the horizon. Victory there would buy him a lot of credit. Before that he has home games against managerless Leicester and 21^st placed Coventry currently second bottom in the form table and the only club with a worse league away record than Pompey having scored 4 goals away in 8 games. The away games are against 18^th placed Burnley who have won 2 of their 8 home games this year and 21^st placed Watford who have won 3 of 8. These games are eminently winnable. Whittingham and Grey have given him some momentum and a new manager 'bounce' could see us looking in a much healthier position in time for the scum which will be a lottery of a game.

Either which way im glad its sorted. Let the next chapter commence...

The wait goes on, but im ready to declare...I want Solskjaer

The wait continues. To be honest, its a bit odd. Three weeks now and no manager. Bets have stopped being taken. But no appointment has been made. A new managerial appointment is always very important – but this one especially so, it will force the cagey CSI to reveal their hand in terms of ambition and finance.

It seemed that Sean O'Driscoll was going to be appointed. Evidently he is not first choice, if he was he would have been announced long ago and the longer the wait goes on the more his future credibility is undermined. He is not a name I get instantly excited about but I am encouraged by the comments of Donny Rovers blogger Keep the Faith after I asked him for his views. He believes S O'D was the best manager in their history and did not deserve the sack. But he warns that his approach needs time – time that his relatively low profile is unlikely to afford him if he does not have a good start. An additional concern is his review of S O'D's media approach that is described as brutally honest and rarely optimistic – this could be a refreshing approach – but when Pompey fans are looking towards years of rebuilding, is this what we need?

More positive is his approach to tactics – he seems to be relatively experimental and willing to change formations during the course of the game, which would be different to the rigidity of Cotterill.

He turned down the Sheff Utd job because he wanted to stay loyal to Doncaster, he was considered for Burnley, Notts F and Bristol C and his popularity at Donny seems unlikely for a sacked manager and his teams play good football. I dont think he would be a bad choice.

BUT the other option seems to be Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. He has just won the league title with Molde of Norway. Their first ever. Sir Alex has come out this week saying he always knew he'd be a top manager and explained how he always used to make copious notes at training and during matches for his future managerial career. However Sir Alex has warned him not to come back to England too soon and Norwegian football pundit Jan Age Fjortoft told this blog two weeks ago he expected him to stay in Norway. However if I had a choice out of the two, I would go with OGS.

Why? Well Pompey are in the doldrums. It doesnt matter which way you look at it, the Premier league hangover remains. The average attendance this year is 13,654, 17^th in the Championship down from 15,701 last year (13^th in the championship) the atmosphere at Fratton is flat and the inability to instantly sell out for the Pompey Scum game is worrying. I would appoint OGS for the boost he would give the club. For the excitement he would generate. A flippant example of this profile is in researching this article I looked up both SOD and OGS, I dont need to tell you which one was featured in articles by such luminaries as Henry Winter. Get him in charge, give us something to be excited about ( also like the idea of a link to United for loan deals) and lets push on. It may seem a strange thing to make the decision on, but both would be a gamble, so lets go for the exciting gamble!

Having said all that the delay indicates we might be about to be hit with a curve ball, perhaps even a Director of football coach arrangement, that would make me very happy!

N.B – Good fun at Palace last night – good to see some original (ish) chants, the persistent Dave Kitson chant to the tune of Cant take my eyes off you:

'oh David Kitson, you are the love of my life, oh David Kitson, I'd let you shag my wife, oh David Kitson, I want Ginger hair tooooooooooooooo

and my favourite (stolen from Liverpool re Maxi - )

Varney, Super Luke Varney runs down the wing for you, do do, do do do, do do, do do do