Team Locals

If you have missed many of the exciting highlights from Portsmouth FC over the past few weeks why not recap with my amazing summary.

There has been loads of activity over the past few weeks at Fratton Park, some good, mostly bad though.

We experienced a bit of déjá vu with Trevor Birch confirming that Chainrai is in the running to buy the club…….again.

Our star player (not) and most highly paid member of staff (fact) at Portsmouth FC, Tal Ben Haim decided that he would stick it out and take another year of pay off our struggling club at a rate of 2 Million Pounds.

A player came, more players left and some players decided to do some farewell tweeting about Pompey. Also the Football League decided that we could start the new season without a point’s reduction…..yeah.

Chainrai in the running –

Trevor Birch confirmed that Portsmouth FC are in discussions with two interested parties, one of which is Balram Chainrai. The other party quickly disappeared as Chainrai slapped a 16million pound price tag on Fratton Park, believed to be valued more like 2-3 million. His evil plan worked and he rubbed his hands.

We signed a player –

Leeds outcast  is looking to kick-start his career with switch to Portsmouth

Hit-man Paynter has flopped since arriving at Elland Road on a free transfer two years ago, notching only three goals in 28 appearances.

But he has an impressive scoring record in the lower leagues with Port Vale and Swindon.

Pompey boss Michael Appleton is looking to rebuild his squad and wants to bring in 18 new players – including Paynter and Barnet’s former Derby striker Izale McLeod.

Appleton struggles to sign any of his targets –

Michael Appleton expressed concerns that he is finding hard to convince players to sign at Pompey due the uncertainty hanging over the clubs financial situation and ongoing future.

“I have to go and do the personal touch with every single player I think can help the football club, sell myself and the club to them, and then hope they will be willing to wait until the back end of the summer when hopefully we will be out of administration and able to do business” – Unlikely but let’s keep our fingers crossed Appy.

Appleton gets excited at the thought of having 7 subs on the bench –

Appleton has backed moves to create a seven-man substitutes bench for next season regardless of the fact that Pompey probably at this point don’t have enough 1^st team players to sit on it.

More players left the club & Joel Wards departure was confirmed to Crystal Palace –  

Joel Ward has finally put pen to paper on a deal, signing for championship side Crystal Palace.

Leeds had been long time favourite’s to sign the versatile 22 year old from Portsmouth after he held negotiations with the club almost three weeks ago.

The main stumbling block for Leeds is reported to have been the transfer fee, believed to be in the region of £450,000 in our opinion a bargain for such a promising young player.

Joel had a little tweet “Just want to say thank you to all the fans and people involved at Portsmouth, for supporting me over the years. #neverforgotten.” – Until he kisses the badge on his Crystal Palace shirt.

Some players publicly expressed a desire to leave the club –

Greg Halford has also indicated that he is looking to leave Pompey to join a club capable of gaining promotion to the Premier League.

The 27 year old arrived from Wolves in 2010 and made his debut for Pompey in a victory over Millwall and then scored his first goal for the club  on 23 October 2010 when he struck the winner in a 2–1 win at Hull City.

Greg had a little tweet to…..“Hopefully, I can find a club that has the recipe for success, which is one that has a great togetherness around it and can perform on a consistent basis, and help them achieve that.”

Star Player (insert laughter) Tal Ben Haim becomes most hated man in Portsmouth –

The Israel international, who is represented by super-agent Pini Zahavi, is not prepared to take a pay cut, despite his club being in such a precarious position.

Also, three former Pompey executives — David Lampitt (leech 1), the new chief executive of Supporters Direct, John Redgate (leech 2) and Nick Byrom (leech 3) — have made football creditor claims to the Football League over monies owed.

This has resulted in the League keeping back a considerable sum from Pompey’s monthly central payments to meet their demands — making the job of keeping the club afloat that much more difficult.

Finally….. Portsmouth Administrator confirms club can play in League One next season –

Trevor Birch had this to say on the matter, “We have kept the Football League informed of the progress that we are making and it has confirmed that Portsmouth Football Club will be allowed to participate in League One in the 2012/13 season even though the club remains in administration.

“It has also confirmed that the club will not face any further point’s deductions if we start the season in administration.”Awesome!