John Mousinho hails Portsmouth's financial transformation after winning two-year battle for Abu Kamara
The winger featured 40 times, scoring five goals, during an ill-fated two years at Hull City
For two years, Abu Kamara topped John Mousinho’s wanted list - now Pompey’s Championship evolution has empowered them to finally succeed.
The head coach is toasting the return of the 23-year-old, whose dazzling displays in the 2023-24 League One title-winning season lit up Fratton Park.
Since then, the Blues have attempted to bring the winger back to the south coast in two previous summers, only to have fallen considerably short in terms of finances and bargaining power.
Now Kamara has at last secured his homecoming, signing for around £2.5m in a transfer window which has seen Tornante considerably ramp up their spending and playing budget to boost Pompey’s progress.
And Mousinho is adamant the Blues wouldn’t have been able to pull off such a signing two years ago.
‘When we first tried to sign him we weren’t in the financial position’
He told The News: ‘This is the third transfer window we tried to bring Abu back. The first summer, the second summer and now this summer.
‘We would have tried it more, but when he went to Hull, the first January he had also played for Norwich. Then he went to Getafe last year after playing for Hull, so had also been at two clubs in that January.
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‘This summer we’ve known that’s a position we really needed to fill, so we are absolutely ecstatic to get Abu in. These sort of signings are the ones which need to become a bit more normal for the football club as we go along.
‘We are now in a really good position, whereas two years ago when we first tried to sign him we weren’t in a financial position to do so.
‘We’ve clearly moved on in those two years, both on transfer fee and getting the player in. We’re now in a position where we can offer more than some of the other clubs at the level. That’s great, it is a really good sign, and we’ve got to get him back to his best.
‘We would have loved to have signed him two years ago and I think Abu was keen to come here. It was reported that it cost around £3.5m for Abu’s services from Norwich to Hull in that first transfer window in the Championship.
‘At that time, we spent £1.2m as a football club on six signings, so things have changed since then.
‘When he went to Hull, there was a part of me thinking that if things click for him then he’s not going to be available to us anytime soon unless we really, really kick on.
‘There were a number of different circumstances at Hull in that first year, he had two different managers, he ended up battling relegation and finishing below us. He went on loan last season and Hull ended up going up, so it was a very, very different set of circumstances there.
‘But I’m hoping we can get him back to his best because, during that 2023-24 season, particularly from January onwards, he was absolutely outstanding.’
‘Our number one target in that position’
By Mousinho’s own admission, the Blues have never ‘like-for-like’ replaced Kamara since the 2023-24 title-winning season.
Matt Ritchie featured 41 times on the right flank in the Blues’ first campaign back in the Championship, albeit a different type of winger.
While Mousinho desperately struggled for consistent selection in the position last term, with Callum Lang, Florian Bianchini, Conor Chaplin, Mark Kosznovszky, Terry Devlin, Josh Murphy, Harvey Blair, Minhyeok Yang, Adrian Segecic, Gustavo Caballero and Milli Alli all featuring there.
Ultimately, a late-season goal flurry from Segecic, including a hat-trick at Stoke in April, rendered the Australian comfortably the most successful of all those who appeared there.
And now, following a two-year absence, Kamara has reclaimed his spot.
‘We have never like-for-like replaced him’
Mousinho added: ‘Abu was our number one target in that position, we have never like-for-like replaced him.
‘We managed to fill that right-wing spot with Matt Ritchie, who played 41 games in the Championship campaign and did brilliantly well, scoring and assisting. Then last year I don’t think we managed to replace Matt.
‘Matt and Abu are completely different types of players. Last year was a very, very different story, we had a number of different players we played out on the right.
‘Just off the top of my head, it was Chappers, Milli, Gus, while Segs scored a hat-trick from out on the right as well. But probably in terms of the profile we are looking for, we never really managed to replace Abu.’