Big questions over Portsmouth position with futures hanging in balance
Terry Devlin, Zak Swanson and Jordan Williams were the right-back options last season, but there’s doubts to varying degrees on the futures of all three players.
On the surface of things, it looks one of the few departments Pompey are well stocked in this summer.
But it could also yet be an area of the pitch where significant transfer surgery is carried out, with it now one week until the summer window opens.
Devlin exit potential, Swanson out of contract and Williams looking for games
The right-back position is one of the more curious considerations for the club’s football operation in the months ahead.
With Terry Devlin’s conversion to that area of the pitch prompting outstanding form, John Mousinho’s squad looked top heavy there last term.
Jordan Williams and Zak Swanson were the other options, with both men proving themselves to be adept Championship performers.
Yet all three, to varying degrees, have doubts over their futures.
The talk over Devlin’s future hasn’t let up since news of Wrexham’s £2m January bid for the Northern Ireland international’s services became public.
The 22-year-old’s stock has only grown since that offer was made, sweeping the board at Pompey’s end-of-season awards and picking up his first competitive international start against Italy in March.
Supporters, of course, don’t want to see the hugely popular figure depart, but there’s also a realism about what could be achieved with reinvesting, say, the profits from a £4m-plus deal for a player they bought for £80,000.
Even Mousinho himself told The News it’s something the club would ‘have to consider’, if they could then use the proceeds to land the next ‘two, three or four Terry Devlins’.
So by any fair yardstick, it would be of little surprise if Devlin had found himself a new home come September 1. He would leave with everyone’s best wishes.
Meanwhile, we await development on the talks which remain ongoing with Zak Swanson to extend the stay of one of Pompey’s longest-serving players.
A fifth season at PO4 would follow two Championship campaigns which have firmly erased any doubts over both the former Arsenal’s robustness and ability to perform at the level.
Serious considerations were made to Swanson adding to his 35 appearances last term, before ultimately making the decision for the 25-year-old to undergo knee surgery in April.
The first port of call, of course, will be for the versatile full-back to complete that rehabilitation, but there’s little doubt a player of his now proven qualities at the level will be of rival interest.
‘Technically and tactically, he’s a Championship player - now he has added a lot of physicality to his game as well,’ Mousinho acknowledged, as Swanson clocked up a century of Pompey performances earlier this year.
But, it’s fair to say things are still far from cut and dry, when it comes to the player’s future being decided.
And what of Jordan Williams? Here’s a player recruited for his experience at the level Pompey were arriving at two years ago, who again has shown himself to be a more than competent performer at PO4.
Yet, at the age of 26, the most senior of Mousinho’s right-backs clocked up the fewest starts last term.
Williams’ 15 outings from the game’s outset was 14 shy of Swanson’s total and 16 fewer than Devlin’s. It’s a stretch to see such an experienced operator being content with such numbers moving forward.
In the face of Pompey’s prized asset being sold, Swanson and Williams seem a sturdy pair of right-back options in a straight fight to start - while seriously boosting the Fratton coffers for enhancing the squad in more pressing areas.
That could well be the outcome but, at this stage, there’s still questions to answer on the right-back front.