‘Can’t afford to do that’: Portsmouth boss' transfer fee warning as he confirms interest in £4.3m Coventry City winger
John Mousinho has confirmed Pompey’s interest in Coventry’s £4.3m winger for the first time, as he discussed the dangers associated with player recruitment at Fratton Park this summer.
John Mousinho has sounded a note of spending caution as he confirmed Pompey’s January interest in winger Jahnoah Markelo.
The Blues boss acknowledged his football will not be able to ‘miss’ with their key summer signings, if the football operation’s given the green light to hike its spending.
Pompey boss: ‘Other clubs can afford to miss - not like that with us’
And the Pompey boss used the example of winger Markelo barely featuring after going to Coventry City for £4.3m, as an example of how rivals are able to operate with a completely different transfer strategy.
Summer spending and the playing budget moving forward is a major topic of conversation at present, after Mousinho guided his team to a third campaign at Championship level.
The head coach today spoke of his optimism at being backed by the club’s owners, with ‘significant fees’ required to be spent to continue the Blues’ second-tier progress.
When doing so, however, those additions will need to make an immediate impact, which is in contrast to how many Championship sides are operating.
Pompey pursued Markelo in January, as they eyed the FC Zurich man to bolster their attacking options for the second half of the campaign.
Coventry captured his signature, however, but the 23-year-old has barely featured for the champions so far with his playing time totalling 44 minutes across substitute appearances.
Mousinho said: ‘Other clubs can do £2.5m-£3m and it doesn’t matter so much if it doesn’t quite work out.
‘I don’t think Coventry will mind me saying this, but we looked at Markelo in January.
‘He ends up going to Coventry for £4m-£4.5m. When we spoke to them after the game last ‘Tuesday, their take was he’s done great and he’s been brilliant since he’s been in the building - but he was always a long-term signing.
‘They were not thinking about him impacting the first team this season.
‘If he’d impact the first team then great, but they’ve got (Ephron) Mason-Clark, (Tatsuhiro) Sakamoto, (Brandon) Thomas-Asante, (Romain) Esse and Jack Rudoni in the building all having the ability to play wide, you can throw Minhyeok (Yang) in there as well.
‘They earned that in the position so it’s an extreme example, but we couldn’t afford to do that.
‘There are other clubs who can probably afford to miss as well, but it’s not like that with us. It doesn’t feel like we can.’
Talks are set to take place this week which will afford Mousinho clarity on the pathway ahead in terms of player recruitment this summer.
The Pompey boss has made plenty of positive noises on that front, but knows the process of getting the right additions is still fraught with difficulties - even when paying increased fees which should negate some transfer dangers.
He added: ‘It’s difficult because recruitment isn’t straightforward. You can do everything right in recruitment, you can take players for the right reasons, do all you background work and sometimes it just doesn’t work out.
‘I can give you a thousand examples over the years of that happening.
‘You can have players playing well at a certain level with a certain club and it doesn’t transfer. It’s not always transferable.’