Transfer report: Portsmouth midfielder Andre Dozzell 'agrees terms' to join MLS side upon expiry of Fratton Park contract
Pompey midfielder Andre Dozzell is being linked with a move away from Fratton Park
Andre Dozzell has reportedly ‘agreed terms’ on a free-transfer move to the MLS.
Reports Stateside claim the Pompey midfielder will leave Fratton Park upon the expiry of his contract and sign for Eastern Conference side DC United.
The transfer gossip line has come from ‘MLS and USMNT Insider’ Tom Bogert, who had insight into the Blues’ pursuit of USA winger Griffin Yow last summer as he looked to leave Belgian sider KVC Westerlo.
Now Dozzell has come up on his radar, with ‘sources’ telling Bogert that a move for the Pompey midfielder has been initiated.
If true, the development will come as a blow to the Championship side. In an interview with The News on Friday, Blues head coach John Mousinho admitted the former QPR and Ipswich Town player was in the best form of his career.
That’s after Dozzell recently returned from an eight-game spell out with an ankle injury to play a key role in Pompey steering themselves clear of relegation.
It was his free-kick delivery that set up the Blues’ late equaliser at Norwich, just moments after making his comeback as a 64th-minute substitute. The 26-year-old’s 87th-minute intervention then prevented the 10-man Blues from losing at home at Oxford United and dropping into the bottom three with six games left to play.
Dozzell was also an important figure in the subsequent victories against Middlesbrough, Ipswich and Leicester, wins which ultimately allowed the Blues to book their second-tier status for another year.
That flirtation with relegation, however, might have come with consequences.
Dozzell, along with Marlon Pack, Conor Ogilvie and Zak Swanson, is among those first-team players entering the final months of their current Fratton Park deals.
And the uncertainity around where Pompey will be playing next season could conceivably have led Dozzell to check out his options. Playing in League One at this stage of his career is something that would not have appealed.
Mousinho, who wants to keep Dozzell at PO4, admitted it was likely that all four first-team regulars had offers from elsewhere. Yet talks had begun into keeping them at Fratton Park.
‘I’m sure they still have offers from other Championship clubs, because there aren’t many free agents,’ he said.
‘But with the lads we’re speaking to at the moment, I think there is advantages to them staying here at the moment.
‘They know me - which may be a disadvantage actually! There’s advantages to them staying here, though.
‘If you look at the four players, there’s Marlon who I’d be very surprised if he wasn’t at the football club next season - and I’d be gutted if he wasn’t.
‘Zak is playing the best football of his career, Connor Ogilvie is playing the best football of his career and so is Doz.
‘I think there’s a lot to be said for that and there’s a lot to be said that they know what we can achieve here. There’s a lot of unknowns going to other football clubs.
‘I know there will be other factors, but I hopefully speak for the three of them there. I’d take Marlon out of that though, because that’s slightly different.’
Dozzell has featured 35 times for Pompey this season and amassed 78 apperances in total following his free transfer move from QPR in the summer of 2024.