Chapter 1: What recent transfer bid has Portsmouth received for Callum Lang?
The latest Pompey news, updates every day from the Pompey Sound News Desk. Even as Pompey's luxury coach was bombing along the motorway, weird and wonderful rumours began bouncing off the walls at breakneck speed. First, it was reported by the Lancashire Post.
then picked up by a number of independent football news agencies, and eventually even the ultra-reliable Portsmouth News, that Portsmouth have received a bid of Ā£1.5m for Callum Lang. The alleged interested party has an enormous historic appetite to sign him, and that is Preston North End.
Preston are currently pressing for a top-six place but have started to have trouble finding the back of the net, and they're set to lose their main striker for three games, due to a suspension triggered by a red card.
The reaction of fans on social media to what is nothing more or less than an unsubstantiated rumour, will make disappointing reading for the true faithful and the Pompey staff and players alike. The Portsmouth News collated a series of comments which were more or less unanimous in saying that the club should let Lang go.
Chapter 2: How are fans reacting to the rumors about Callum Lang?
The thinking, posted almost entirely by people who chose to remain anonymous, appeared to be that Lange was rarely fit, and that the club would be better off using the fee to buy someone who would be regularly available. Naturally Portsmouth FC have maintained a dignified silence.
I mean, if you think you know enough about football to have an opinion on something like this, you have to remember that you should keep it to yourself, or if you are going to voice it, to make sure that it's going to be of benefit to your football club. And how does it benefit your football club, if you're a Pompey fan, to go out in public and say that some guy should leave?
Some guy who we have had great service from in the past and want great service from in the future. And if you think him being injured means that he ought to clear off, then the same could apply to about a dozen Pompey players at this moment in time. It's an absurd opinion. So keep it to yourself. I don't care if it makes you look stupid when you voice it.
My concern is that it impacts the players. It impacts the staff. It impacts the club. to say of one of our most flamboyant, successful, valuable colleagues, for that's what he is, he, if you're a Pompey fan, is your colleague, should go, is appalling, ridiculous, counterproductive. It's just like shooting yourself in the foot. You can have an opinion like that, keep it between your two ears.
If you want to voice it, you can say it to perhaps you've got a mate or two who is as much of a dallard as you are when it comes to footballing matters and humanity.
I rest my case. Next. Another rumour that's doing the rounds concerns Josh Murphy. Local newspapers and sports journalists in the Leicester area are fanning the embers of an almost worthless rumour, and successfully managing to get the occasional flicker of a flame. Their tack is that Leicester are making a move for Josh Murphy.
Leicester are currently lying 14th in the Championship due to the logjam nature of the mid-table in the league, yet are only three points off being right in there with a shout for the playoffs. Their recent results have not been impressive.
On New Year's Day they were turned over 3-1 by Sheffield United, they picked up a narrow win over West Brom four days later, and then on 17 January went down 2-1 at Coventry, then stole a point in a one-all draw at Wrexham on Tuesday. They've got Oxford coming up on Saturday, followed by Charlton on the last day of January which is almost the last day of the transfer window.
Josh Murphy's current contract with Pompey takes him through to the year 2028, which as a 30-year-old means he has a lucrative two and a half years ahead of him down on the south coast.
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