Chapter 1: What challenges is Pompey facing this season?
Sounders, hello. It is Mick here. You know, I love our club just like you love our club. It's a big part of my life and has been for decades. And I'm not enjoying this bit of the journey. None of us can be much because we're in a hole. It's been alleviated a tiny bit by the win on Saturday, of course. But that was...
against a side in the ditch in Sheffield Wednesday and can't be even hoped as the beginning of a recovery given the appalling state Wednesday have been allowed to reach simply by their poor ownership. We're not of course in that state
But for us, we've gone from an August of hope and expectation of progress to a January of emergency planning to escape the hot potato of relegation that's passed around now for the rest of the season at the bottom of the championship by six or seven sides, we are one. And we react just like all football fans to a crisis with a mixture of stoicism, you know the sort of thing, we're in a mess.
Such is life. I'll mutter darkly into my breakfast bowl of cornflakes.
Or then there are the panickers.
Only players valued at three million plus can save us. John Masseno's so depressed he's about to resign. rich shoes has become a failure and must be sacked and then there's the oh all pervasive one all yanks out sounders i can't claim i'm a bundle of joy just at the moment but as always there's a middle road through all of this our problem started in the summer
when one or two of our acquisitions didn't hit the ground running.
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Chapter 2: How have injuries impacted Pompey's performance?
I'm thinking of Swifty and Chaplin, while others, like Leroux and Koznoski, who came, of course, from abroad, found adjusting to the Championship challenging. These things happen. Then, with the season underway, we got injuries.
I know all clubs get injuries, but I would argue more than our fair share, and in particular to key players, Schmidt, Ogilvie, Schottnesey, Pack, Murphy and Bishop, players at the core of our squad, the backbone, you could say. And it really has been an uphill journey ever since, to the point that
we arrived at a truly wonderful fixture and draw with the Arsenal, which is a dream really, which should have provided excitement and anticipation and the hope of being a David against Goliath, dreams of headlines, all those traditional emotions of the FA Cup and instead soundless. we got the dead hand of the so-called Pompey Alliance.
This anonymous little group seized the opportunity to make the most of our poor form, rode in on the back of a high-profile game to rally the more worried and susceptible of us. And the Yanks Out folks and those who love sackings. A bit of a purge, spilling a bit of blood in the hope that it will rid us of our poison. It was popular, that, I gather, in medieval days.
So before the Arsenal game, the so-called alliance of three, ten, thirty-seven and a half, I don't know. They announced anyway, and I quote, Portsmouth Football Club has endured significant hardship in recent years and supporters have remained loyal throughout. This referred to Eisner's time, this hardship. Is that sound as the hardship of a refurbished Fratton Park?
Is it the introduction of a professional Pompey women's team? Is that the hardship? Is it the hardship of a new fan zone or the hardship of a return to spending millions in fees on recruitment, which we've been doing in the last couple of years? The hardship of sold out crowds of 20,000? Or is it the hardship of promotion to the championship? Hardship?
There are many times in my history of following Pompey when we could have done with hardship like that. But now the alliance called for an end to remaining loyal. We've had enough of that stuff. And their appeal has led to some others emboldened on social media to make clear their unhappiness with Pompey's present predicament. And I understand that.
Some are shocked, disappointed, even angry that summer optimism has to be punctured into winter fear.
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Chapter 3: What is the significance of the Arsenal fixture for Pompey?
But personally, I don't think this means anyone should be forced out of Fratton Park. I don't believe... Those in control are either arrogant or stupid, which is both of which they've been accused of. They are neither of those things. I think they've simply got the balance of their strategy wrong. A bit wrong.
Recruiting the experience to survive has to come before the investment in promise or at any rate simultaneously. And the lines are hard to draw. We've brought in, as I said earlier, players of experience and achievement who haven't shown those qualities for us. And we've signed young men of promise who haven't developed fast enough to improve our side. The margins are tiny.
And failure, of course, is a big price. But we're not there yet, sounders. Recent attempts to adjust the balance are exciting and, let's be fair, they look hopeful. We'll know in a month. This experience may also lead Michael Eisner and his family to be marginally less risk-averse with his Pompey budget.
He may just maybe be asking too much of Messrs Messina and Hughes and their team at the moment with regard to recruitment budgets. Perhaps there are clever ways to secure extra speculative funding. Remember, they are learning about the football business, these guys. They know all about business, believe me, but the football business is a special animal.
Chapter 4: What criticisms are being directed at the club's management?
Anyway, this learning will continue and that's all for the future. Now, we look to John and Rich to make the most of what they've got. When you have a problem, you have to find solutions. And they seem to be doing that in the marketplace as I speak. And we should try not to get angry. It's not good for our blood pressure, Sounders. Play up, Pompey.