Portsmouth: Vital days ahead as Blues seek to turn corner
- Published
Steve Seddon made 18 appearances on loan at Portsmouth in 2019/20, scoring against Rochdale and helping the Blues make the League One play-offs.
It's January. It's cold, the transfer market is fairly slow, the Dallas Cowboys have crashed out of the NFL play-offs and Portsmouth are in danger of throwing away a very promising position in League One.
Sadly, some things don't change.
I guess if you want to desperately clutch at straws, when things go wrong in January, unlike other months, at least you can bring in some fresh blood to improve things.
Pompey desperately need that boost.
So far for Portsmouth goalkeeper Matt Macey is the only new arrival (Josh Martin has extended his contract until the end of the season as well). Macey is a big upgrade but only as a back-up and could conceivably not feature at all if Will Norris retains form and fitness.
So where do you recruit from? The number of players in non-league football who could come in and immediately improve a League One side looking for promotion could be in single figures. There aren't loads in League Two either and prising anyone away from a club in the midst of a promotion battle themselves would be challenging.
So what about the Championship? Can you convince a side to part with one of their back-ups?
It's not impossible, or out of the question, but no one is willing to leave themselves short. Ryley Towler might be fourth choice centre-back at Pompey again by the end of the month but boss John Mousinho has made it clear he won't be leaving - even on loan.
Anyone lower than fourth choice for a position in the Championship probably isn't going to come in and improve things at the top of League One.
As for the cry "well just spend some money then!" an increased budget certainly helps things but spending, particularly in January, doesn't guarantee success.
Corey Blackett-Taylor looks like he'll be on the move from Charlton in January. Eight goals and seven assists are a good haul in the first half of the season. That's already matched his best goal tally and equalled his assist numbers from the previous two campaigns combined.
Multiple people in football I've spoken to have questioned his consistency.
He's never played 30 league games in a season. He might turn out to be a key signing and have a great second half of the season but the numbers don't make him a dead cert, even if you splash out a big fee and substantial wages.
Portsmouth tried to buy Jevani Brown from Exeter in January last year but wouldn't meet the £500k valuation.
Had Pompey done so it would have been celebrated as showing ambition. No-one could have predicted Brown's off-field issues but he's scored two goals since that deadline day and not completed 90 minutes for Bristol Rovers since August. That would not have been half a million pounds well spent.
There aren't many good examples of January recruitment at Fratton Park in recent years.
Steve Seddon was a rare one. An unheralded loan arrival, he made an immediate and impressive impact.
Since then, Seddon has played for four clubs and never really found a home. But he lifted Pompey in January 2020 and that's the thing, right now, the Blues don't need long term. They need an immediate impact. That might mean making a signing that moves away from from the model of talented young players who can be developed.
The squad hasn't become bad overnight and a couple of new faces who are good enough to come straight into the starting XI might be all that is needed to get the team back on track.
I've given a number of reasons as to why recruiting in January is hard. But it is possible and vital for this season to buck the trend and not see Pompey slide away after Christmas.
Head coach Mousinho has been in his post for almost exactly a year. Sporting director Richard Hughes just a few months longer. Unquestionably they've both done a good job so far. If they can get January right and win promotion to the Championship they'll both deserve all the adulation they'll get in April.
This month's decision making is crucial. No-one ever said it would easy.
You can hear every Pompey match live on BBC Radio Solent with Andy Moon and former Blues striker and manager Guy Whittingham.
