Chapter 1: What are the latest updates on Portsmouth's transfer window?
The latest Pompey news updates every day from the Pompey Sound News Desk. Here's how the final hours of the window unfolded as the clock ticked through the afternoon and the rumour mill went into overdrive. At 2pm Football League World were claiming an exclusive, that Portsmouth were in advance talks to sign Luton Town forward, Jacob Brown.
They said that Barnsley had been favourites to sign him, but that he reportedly found a move to the Championship more attractive. The 27-year-old forward had only managed seven goals in 60 games in Bedfordshire, but was returning to full fitness and hungry to prosper. The rumour was being repeated in Luton, and also in Portsmouth by the news.
As 2pm passed the rumour persisted that Pompey's pursuit of Dundee's Luke Graham was still alive, and that Pompey had increased their offer to more than a million, with Dundee risking a rift between the owners and the manager, with the owners seemingly interested in boosting their bank balance, and the manager desperate to keep as many of his quality players as possible.
Also at 2 o'clock there was no further news on the gossip that Moneybags Wrexham were planning a last-minute swoop for Terry Devlin, jangling their trouser pockets with a sum of money which for them is loose change namely Ā£2m. So at 2pm, with just five hours to go, there are no less than seven players connected with Pompey one way or another, whose futures are up in the air.
Now we were told by management that it was probably going to go down to the wire, and it really is going down to the wire, middle of the afternoon, and there are no announcements about Luke Graham, Jacob Brown, Callum Lang, Terry Devlin, Gustavo Caballero, Jacob Farrell and Luke Leroux. And at the beginning of the transfer window, it was expressed in a number of places.
And I believe John Massino is somebody who also suggested this, that such was our need with such a set of injuries that we better get busy in the transfer window if we're going to do well in January. And we've got some important games in January. Well, we got kind of busy, but not as busy as we're going to be in the last few hours of this transfer window.
There are seven telephone lines that are too hot to touch at the moment at Fratton Park, dealing with all these various negotiations.
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Chapter 2: Who are the players linked to Portsmouth during the transfer window?
But in the month of January, started off really badly with a defeat 5-0 to Bristol. And did we panic? We did not panic. And we went unbeaten in the remaining four games of January, getting three points against Chef Wednesday, getting a point against Watford, getting a point from that lot up the road, and getting three fantastic points. Should have been four or five, really.
We played that well against West Brom. What do we know? We know at two o'clock in the afternoon that there is lots of frantic activity going on, but we're probably not going to hear anything concrete until around about seven or maybe even later, which is very frustrating because Pompey fans are spending the whole afternoon on...
By 3pm with just four hours left of the window, the announcement that Gustavo Caballero had signed from Santos was not merely hoped for and predicted but expected, yet still hadn't happened. The rumour appeared so strong, fortified by a phone photo of the Santos winger-cum-striker enjoying a cup of coffee in an out-of-town diner near Fratton Park,
that many fans were under the illusion they had already seen him in a blue shirt sitting at the usual desk, signing the usual contract, with the usual I'm so glad to be at Portsmouth smile, and the usual upside-down pen.
3pm came and went and in addition to the radio silence about Caballero, there was no official announcement about the futures of Jacob Farrell and Luke Leroux, both of whom are thought to be poised to pack a Samsonite if a deal can be done to send them out on loan.
As the clock passed 3pm, there was likewise nothing announced about Callum Lang and Preston, and no updates on either Luke Graham or Jacob Brown. As for Terry Devlin and Wrexham, again, sweet nothing. The middle of the afternoon of the end of the January transfer window.
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Chapter 3: What challenges is Portsmouth facing with player acquisitions?
One poet referred to it as the hollow of the afternoon. And Jean-Paul Sartre said, three o'clock? It's too late for anything and too early for anything. It's a good remark. So Caballero, one guesses, one supposes that his arrival is the clearest indication there could be that a deal is close to being done to release Callum Lang, who wants to go.
But we can't let him go until we get the right amount of money for him. And we can't really let him go unless we can get decent cover. And Caballero is something of a somebody. He plays for Santos, which are the most successful Brazilian football club of all time.
And he has made a number of appearances as a starting player, but he hasn't managed to hold down a first-team place with any regularity. Twelve appearances so far this season, I think, and one goal. Makes him a somebody, something of a somebody, but affordable.
It could be that we are going to be offering Santos, who, by the way, are a bit cash-strapped, it's reported, so they need a boost, more or less the same amount of money that we'll get for Callum Lamb if and when that happens. It may have already happened, but the announcements have simply been delayed until after seven o'clock.
As the clock ticked down towards the Monday evening 7pm deadline, Pompey Sound took a look at the acquisitions who have been confirmed so far. Players have been brought in are two wingers, a central midfield defender, and a central defender who can also play at left back.
One has been purchased at a cost reported to be in the region of Ā£500,000, one signed as a free, having reached a mutual agreement with his parent club to leave, and two have come in on loan. They are all experienced professionals, two are 25-year-olds, the remaining two are aged 30. There is a curious feature in that they all share the letter A, as the first letter of their surname.
A meaningless coincidence but an unusual one nonetheless. Ibu Adams, a defensive midfielder, signed for Pompey for two years from Derby County. EJ Alisi is a central defender on loan from Sunderland, Mileni Ali is 25 and is here on loan from Luton, and Keshi Anderson has signed a contract as a free agent, having been let go by Birmingham.
So the thinking behind the acquisitions that have been confirmed so far is pretty straightforward. They're players who are experienced, so they will hit the ground running and some of them already have. But they're plugging gaps in our squad line-up, the arrangement of the squad, caused by injuries, defenders and wide forwards.
John Massino, though he loves versatility, he still wants to have two people vying for each position on the pitch in his preferred 4-2-3-1 formation. So he started by plugging in the places where those holes were the most... well, those potholes were the biggest...
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Chapter 4: How did Portsmouth perform in January before the transfer deadline?
Less than three hours to go before the transfer window closes, and with 10 players' futures in a state of flux not to mention the overall future of Portsmouth Football Club, another hat is thrown into the ring, that of central defender Madiodia Deer.
This tip comes from the occasionally reliable source of transfer guru Fabrizio Romano, who says that Pompey are closing in on a deal for the central defender who is a Senegalese and who plays in the second tier of Norwegian football. There remains no concrete news about any of the other 10 deals that are in one state of flux or another behind the scenes at Fratton Park.
Okay, so it's worth me now passing on to you that according to Fabrizio Romano, the deal has been done. and it's being released as an exclusive story, no longer a piece of gossip, which it never was. We didn't hear about it, did you? But it's definitely, according to him, now a done deal, and he is on his way.
A Senegalese footballer who plays centre-back for FK Haugesund, and they bought him as an asset with a view to selling him on, which apparently is what they've managed to achieve. because they signed him up until 2028, making sure that they would get their money's worth once somebody came in for him.
And if the story is to be believed and there's been no official announcement yet, somebody has come in for him, it's Pompey. The clock struck five. Two hours of the transfer window remained, 120 minutes and counting. 5pm came and went, and still not a peep out of Pompey, or any one of the 11 players whose names have been the subject of speculation.
Rumour, gossip, tickle-tattle, hearsay, and somewhere along the way genuine, honestly brokered negotiation. John Massino swung the spotlight away from the transfer window and onto Pompey's latest injury news, revealing that Kobe Bishop was to undergo a scan as soon as the swelling on his ankle had decreased, and that Harvey Blair has been set a target of February 14 for his return to action.
Well, it's something concrete, isn't it, the injury news? But it's well-timed by John Massino. Bit of a smokescreen, really, just to take the heat and the limelight away from what must be pretty frantic goings-on at Pompey. Even if some of these negotiations have already been finished and are over and done with, Callum Lang knows where he's going. Maddio Dio Dia knows where he's coming.
Jacob Farrell and Luke LaRue might know where they're going. They might know that they're not going. All those things might be known. You can bet that a press release, a big press release, is already half written at Fratton Park, but there will be some things that are still uncertain. Are Wrexham going to come in with a Ā£3, 4, 5 million bid for Terry Devlin? Is Gustavo Caballero actually signed?
If he is signed, then why hasn't that been revealed? Because they're rolling it all up into one big announcement, I suspect. Jacob Brown doesn't seem a particularly likely acquisition if Caballero is in the country. and possibly already in the building? The Luke Graham one is the fascinating one. It's going down to the wire.
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