Avoiding the Drop

Last Season: 10 wins, 11 draws, and 17 losses gets you 41 points; as previously mentioned, three teams – Portsmouth, Bolton, and Blackburn – tied on 41 points. Portsmouth was sandwiched between Bolton and Blackburn on goal differential, ending up in 14th place. They scored 38 goals all season and allowed 57, finishing with a -19 goal differential; they also won only two games on the road all season.

Transfers (In): Steve Finnan (Espanyol-Free), Aaron Mokoena (Blackburn-Free), Antti Niemi (Out of Retirement), Frédéric Piquionne (Olympique Lyonnais-Loan)

Transfers (Out): Sol Campbell (End of Contract), Peter Crouch (Tottenham-£9.3 million), Sean Davis (Bolton-Free Transfer), Theofanis Gekas (Bayern Leverkeusen-Returned from Loan), Glen Johnson (Liverpool-£18 million), Laurén (End of Contract), Glen Little (Sheffield United-Free Transfer), Arnold Mvuemba (LC Orient-Free), Noé Pamarot (End of Contract), Callum Reynolds (Luton Town-Loan), Jerome Thomas (West Brom-End of Contract), Djimi Traoré (AS Monaco-Free Transfer)

Season Outlook: A club’s ownership situation is not usually the best place to start a preview for the upcoming season. Usually you want to talk about a club’s new players, or their home form compared to their away form, or maybe even a coaching change. The backroom staff, after all, doesn’t play the games; they’re always backseat to the players.

For Portsmouth, however, that rule doesn’t apply. Mostly, that’s because the club has no owner and are selling players off simply to survive as a financial entity. That’s left Pompey with a £27.5 million profit on player sales this window, most of which has likely gone into paying bills to simply keep the club afloat.

The issue is Sulaiman al-Fahim’s rumored takeover of the club. Way back in May, French businessman Alexandre Gaydamak “sold” the club to al-Fahim. Because al-Fahim was previously highly involved in the Abu Dhabi Group’s takeover of Manchester City, the FA stepped in and subjected him to a “fit and proper” screening. That was passed on July 21st, and Gaydamak stepped down from the board in anticipation of the ownership switch.

That switch hasn’t happened yet; in fact, yesterday it was revealed that al-Fahim’s bid might be on the verge of collapse. That’s left the club’s players and fans in complete limbo; the new owner’s not putting money into the team until it’s actually his, while the old owner’s not putting money into the team because he’s anticipating walking away from it. Director and CEO Peter Storrie described the situation like this last week:

“Until this takeover happens, neither the old nor the new owner is placing any money into the business. When – and if – it does, I’m not yet aware of what finance will be available for [new] players.

“The business has debts to pay and the banks are not releasing funds, so this leaves the club with no option but to sell to keep going. I agree we need new players, a stadium, but we can’t do it without finance and we’ve had none of this for more than nine months.”

Storrie’s “selling to keep going” strategy has stripped the team of pretty much all their notable players. In fact, their total squad size right now is 23, a number which includes four keepers. Of the remaining 19 outfield players, four of them – centerbacks Linvoy Primus and Hermann Hreiðarsson, midfielder Richard Hughes, and newly acquired right back Steve Finnan – are out injured, with Finnan’s injury lacking a timetable for recovery.

With other sources of income (kit sponsorship, for example) also drying up, manager Paul Hart is left with the unenviable task of trying to keep up a team smaller than an MLS side that’s been stripped of all talent and has no owner. They have no depth in midfield (only six players on the squad are currently listed as midfielders) and are already injured along the back line.

Oh, and Paul Hart? He’s not that good, really. He’s the caretaker that took over for Tony Adams after Adams was sacked last January; they probably would’ve liked to have replaced him, but (again) the lack of funds made that impossible.

When we did our predictions early on, I predicted Portsmouth would end up in 18th place. Now that I’ve taken the time to actually review Portsmouth’s situation, I can’t see them even doing that well; Portsmouth would be lucky to not do a Derby this year, frankly. I’m going to predict a last-place finish and a terribly depressing season over at Fratton Park; even if the ownership issue gets sorted, there’s no time left to replace the talent that they’ve lost.