Duncan Barkes

One, I don't think many of us have given a great deal of thought to the fairly obvious fact that with Pompey down towards the relegation zone, one or two players and their people, their agency, might say it's not a good idea to go there because you could end up being relegated and that wouldn't do your market value any good.

And it wouldn't do your profile any good.

So think about a club that's higher up in the league than, say, 20th, 21st, 19th, which is round about where we are.

The second thing, of course, is that the club's doing all it can to steer clear, to rise above, to get away from the relegation zone.

So there's nothing more that they can do than they aren't already doing to achieve that.

And the third thing that's worth mentioning

reminding ourselves about, as far as this story is concerned, is it might be all hot air designed to increase the transfer value of the player in question.

And I suppose, finally, fourth thing, would we be paying £3 million for a striker?

It doesn't seem likely.

Important, though, good transfer business is, in January, it doesn't look likely that we'll be spending £3 million on any one player.

Yeah, it's tricky, isn't it, for a club like Pompey because we've got some youngsters coming through who clearly have the potential to play first-team football at championship level, certainly League One or Two level, but they're not there yet.

They're not old enough, strong enough, big enough, experienced enough.

They're not battle-hardened enough.

And the only way that they can improve that facet of themselves, which is to be at least as old as they are, preferably a little bit older than they are, if you know what I mean, is by getting them playing week in, week out in a challenging footballing environment.

So you've got to choose that environment very carefully.

And of course, the manager of the club that you lend your player to has to be complicit in...

In the overall plan for the player, a player who is going to play regularly for that club, but then the club will be able to accommodate that player leaving whenever at the end of the season.

If the manager changes and you have a manager who doesn't want to go along with the deal that was struck between the club that's borrowing someone such as Harry Clout or...

and the club that is lending someone like Harry Clout, then obviously you've got to think again.

And that's what Pompey have done.