‘Significant figures’: Portsmouth boss’ revealing transfer spending insight ahead of key talks
A revealing insight from the Pompey boss over increased transfer fees and hiking the playing budget, ahead of key talks on the issue this week.
John Mousinho believes Pompey will likely need to spend ‘significant figures’ to continue their Championship spending evolution.
And the Blues boss is confident there will be the backing from the club’s owners to make that increase in terms of transfer fees and playing budget a reality this summer.
Pompey boss: ‘Significant figures in terms of spend and wage budget’
Mousinho gave a revealing insight into the levels he feels will be required to progress in the next window, referencing the £2-5m category he feels will potentially negate some of the risk to recruiting ‘established Championship players’.
Talks will take place this week to get clarity on the way ahead for recruitment , with the head coach speaking of potentially bringing in four or five players of increased value from where the club have been operating.
Mousinho said: ‘Yes, increased spending is the obvious answer and what everyone goes back to.
‘I think we can definitely do that, but it’s about getting to a level where everyone’s comfortable and will work for us.
‘We can’t say all a sudden we are going to spend £40m this summer, it’s just not going to happen. But can we up those £1m-£1.5m transfer fees. Can we up those?
‘Can we get to the levels where we can get established Championship players with less risk in the equation?
‘There will always be risk, look at clubs who’ve recruited over the past two windows. There’s plenty of players who fall into that £2m-£5m category that haven’t gone right. But some clubs can do two of those, so it doesn’t matter as much.
‘We have to be astute and clever, we need to be right at the leading edge of everything to get it right.
‘I do think we can go in that direction and I do think we can get there - but it’s about supporting that with evidence of how we are going to progress these players, how they fit in the side and if one player in that category is going to bolster the side - or do we need to do four or five?
‘So then we are looking at significant figures, significant figures in terms of the spend and also the wage budget.
‘It’s a long conversation and it’s one we’re going to have. Hopefully we come out the other end and we get things right.
‘But it’s not just as simple as saying we’re going to spend and that is going to be the silver bullet to change all of our fortunes. ‘
Mousinho: ‘30-40 per cent increase’ in playing budget
Mousinho has also given some insight into the spending levels Pompey have been operating at since their Championship return, with just over £1m spent on fees ahead of their first second-tier campaign.
The head coach then stated the transfer budget increased approximately fourfold last summer, as the likes of Luke Le Roux, Josh Knight and Mark Kosznovszky arrived with a ‘30-40 per cent’ uplift in playing budget.
Mousinho added: ‘If you look at the progression over the two years in the Championship, the summer we came up we spent just over £1m in terms of transfer fees.
‘We took a lot of players who we thought could have high potential for relatively low fees, a couple of frees and then bolstered the squad with loan signings.
‘We then took Hayden (Matthews) in January for about £1m-£1.2m, then last summer increased the transfer budget.
‘The transfer budget was about four times what it was the previous summer and we increased the playing budget, with about a 30-40 per cent increase.
‘Unfortunately for us, though, for a variety of factors not least the three clubs coming up from League One doing what they did in terms of spending, all of a sudden our increased budget wasn’t a relative increase. It may have actually been a decrease.
‘I’m not sure how you properly quantify that, but that’s how it felt in that moment.
‘So when ourselves, Derby and Oxford came up from League One there were three sides who didn’t spend a huge amount who were battling at the bottom of the league.
‘This year we’ve been competing against the likes Leicester, West Brom and Blackburn at the bottom of the league. That’s difficult in itself.’