‘It feels like that stage’: Portsmouth boss’ spending admission on summit talks D-Day
Pompey’s key figures meet today for key talks over the direction the club’s headed on the pitch. John Mousinho offers insight on what’s set to take place.
John Mousinsho admitted it feels like Pompey are at a moment where the club needs to up their spending to progress.
But the Blues boss insisted today’s summit talks with the Eisners is about laying down a ‘coherent plan’ for the way forward on the pitch at PO4 - and not demands to spend more money on players.
Pompey boss: ‘It does feel like we’re ready to kick on’
Mousinho is set to meet with key board members, with Eric Eisner present ahead of Saturday’s final league clash with Birmingham City and both chairman Michael and his son Breck joining discussions Stateside.
The Pompey head coach will be outlining a conviction his club are ready to ‘kick on’ with their Championship progress.
Mousinho said: ‘It feels like that stage (where the owners will need to increase spending).
‘We’re set up in a good moment to do that with the longevity we’ve got here, the staff, the personnel.
‘I just feel like it does, otherwise I wouldn’t say it. It does feel like we’re ready to kick on.
‘The easy thing for me to have said was “It’s going to be tough next season and the ambition is to finish fourth bottom”.
‘That might end up being the case, but I don’t want it to be the case. I want to push on, put a bit of pressure on myself and us as a football club to improve and move on.
‘I want that accountability and I want that pressure. It might not work and I might not have the answers, but I want to try and I have ideas in terms of what we can do to move forward.’
Although player spending and transfer targets is naturally set to feature in talks and is the big topic among supporters, Mousinho is at pains to highlight discussions will be about the pathway forward Pompey - and how that will be achieved.
He added: ‘All it needs to look like is a conversation about where we go as a football club. What is the long-term vision for the football club? What is the timescale for us to achieve that?
‘I’m not going to ask the owners to tell me can we sign four, five or six players.
‘In League One it was: What was the ambition? The ambition was to get out of League One. That’s what the owner said, so we said here’s how you do it - and we were backed to do it.
‘So it will be about what’s the ambition for the next four, five or six years? For example, if it is to get out of the Championship, we will be able to present a case to the owners to signal how you can get there - how we think we can get there.
‘If it’s to stay in the Championship, that’s fine, we will present a case on how to do that.
‘For me, it’s about assessing what the vision is for the football club and then building from there, based on what I know, what Rich (Hughes) knows and putting that case forward.
‘If it’s to do this, we will need to do four or five (players) and in January we will need another three, four or five. Oh, by the way, we made mistakes here, so we need to improve here and there’s this needed at the training ground or Fratton Park and we need to change this about how we travel. We could need to revamp the coaching staff by bringing in a coach. It’s all of these sorts of things.
‘So it’s genuinely not just give us more money - it’s let’s come up with a coherent plan.’