Latest: John Mousinho’s transfer vow as Portsmouth look to push spending for key business
Pompey faced some criticism last week over taking a loan signing in Swansea City’s Florian Bianchini over paying a fee. John Mousinho now makes it clear about how things stand in terms of spending - and stretching the Blues’ transfer kitty.
Pompey have money in the kitty as they focus on key transfer business.
Blues boss John Mousinho is adamant there’s funds available as talent is sought to supplement his squad this summer.
Mousinho: Money to spend - and potential to stretch budget
And Mousinho revealed there’s even the potential to stretch the existing playing budget for the right additions, ahead of a critical recruitment period.
Pompey have bought in five players so far this summer with fees paid to secure the services of Adrian Segecic, Luke Le Roux and Mark Kosznovszky and John Swift arriving as a free agent.
Florian Bianchini, who delivered an assist for Saturday’s winner against PEC Zwolle on his debut, joined on loan for the season from Swansea last week.
The Bianchini deal attracted some criticism due to his temporary nature, while the 24-year-old managed three goals and no assists through his maiden English campaign.
Mousinho has now set the record straight on what resources are left for new faces with a ‘figure in mind’ to spend on another attacker in particular.
He said: ‘There is money for attacking additions.
‘We’re in a good spot. We’ve made three signings this summer we’ve spent money and spent a significant amount of money, certainly from where we’ve been as a football club over the past couple of years.
‘We’re really pleased with that, and there’s money left in the kitty for what we want to do.
‘We do have a set figure in mind for that (a new attacker), but one thing I do know is as a football club if we needed to stretch it, as long as we could justify it from the football side, we’ve got no problem getting on the call and putting our case forward.
‘I’ve been here two-and-a-half years and the answer has always been yes.’
Pompey’s level of spending has steadily increased throughout Mousinho’s tenure, with the bar raised in January with the £1.27m paid for Aussie Hayden Matthews a 14-year high.
Mousinho has already made it clear the club can push on from that level now, though the Blues are still well short of many of their rivals and the incredible cash shelled out in the division.
The Pompey boss made it clear, however, the football operation will continue to work prudently under the Eisners.
He added: ‘I think we can push on from what we’ve done so far.
‘There’s a few things which stand out to me. There was the Callum Lang deal in January last year when we were looking to bolster the squad and didn’t necessarily have the budget.
‘Callum became available to us and we decided to do it, credit to the football club for that because it helped us out of League One and we all know the impact Callum had last year.
‘That was the same in January with Hayden (Matthews) and we definitely have the capability to go to the board and have a reasonable conversation. We always get a positive response.
‘We will go with ones we ones we feel are realistic. We don’t want to waste anyone’s money and we will get ones wrong, it happens.
‘You can’t get every one right but certainly with the significant ones we speak to the board about, we want to make sure we get it right.’