View: Portsmouth must improve player trading model to compete in Championship
Portsmouth are learning the hard way that not everyone who gets promoted to the Championship can compete immediately.
Currently sitting bottom of the table, albeit with two games in hand, John Mousinho is facing increasing questions about his management at Fratton Park.
Four points in his last two matches make him safe for now, but those rearranged games against Blackburn and Millwall are very important.
So, where has it gone wrong?
Derby and Oxford are also starting to toil with one win in their previous six fixtures, and winning those two games mentioned would put Pompey in between them.
Player trading is a financial model that is now more popular than ever, and it is time that Portsmouth hopped on the train that was made very famous by the likes of Brighton.
Of course, selling players as soon as you jump into the Championship isn’t ideal, but building a solid base is.
Looking at the figures from Transfermarkt, Portsmouth, as well as Derby and Oxford made zero money from sales this summer, as is expected.
But, clubs on the up, like Sunderland have made sure that they can sell players such as Jack Clarke, make £14.7million and still compete by using that money for replacements.
Leeds are not a good comparison for Portsmouth, no one is saying that, but selling Archie Gray for over £30million from their academy and Crysencio Summerville for over £20million profit shows it can be done.
Queens Park Rangers, who are one spot above Pompey, only raked in £3.14m from sales and it shows in the Championship right now.
Ipswich are the anomaly in all of this, but even their squad has changed massively in the Premier League.
Portsmouth struggle with transfers
Player sales always help a club deal with PSR, but also who they can bring in.
This is where Portsmouth have failed miserably this season, with £2.8million spent [transfermarkt].
The likes of Josh Murphy and Matt Ritchie are starting to find their feet consistently at Fratton Park, and have impressed given they arrived for no initial cost.
Elias Sorensen was an early arrival, and despite his goal at Leeds on the opening day, he has since only played 236 minutes and hasn’t featured at all since 22 October.
Ibane Bowat signed from Fulham on transfer deadline day, and although nobody can predict an injury, the near-£500,000 fee looks like an initial waste given he will spend months on the sideline.
Mousinho must have had high hopes for his big-money signing of the window, Abdoulaye Kamara from Borussia Dortmund, but he has only played 93 minutes across three games.
The midfielder has been an unused substitute for eight consecutive games, proving that money has not been invested wisely enough to compete at Championship level.
The likes of Plymouth have held onto players like Morgan Whittaker for too long and have seen no success when they could have raked in game-changing money.
The only caveat to this, is who could Pompey sell or actually generate serious interest for when struggling so much in the Championship?
Mousinho must find the answers, both immediate and future, if he wants to save his job at Fratton Park and push the club forward towards more success.
Could player trading be the answer? Time will tell.
In other Portsmouth news, Millwall manager Neil Harris has thanked Pompey for what they did after the recent postponement
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