That gave Neil Allen and Jordan Cross the brilliant opportunity to get a real sense of how John Mousinho’s team are shaping up ahead of the enormous challenge that awaits them in four weeks time.
It also presented them the golden chance to pick the brains of the head coach and sporting director Rich Hughes to see how Pompey’s ongoing recruirment drive is going. There’s still plenty of work to be done in that department, despite the arrivals of five players since the transfer window opened on June 14.
Speculation remains rife in regards to a number of issues. So what better way to address those subjects that to speak directly to the key men at the top to the chain? We’ve provided you with their responses all week via portsmouth.co.uk. But with so much discussed and situations remaining fluid, we thought it’s worth putting together a transfer state of play so you can remain as up to date as possible when it comes to Pompey’s current transfer window.
We hope this proves useful, with close to 20 transfer issues addressed.
9. Zak Swanson
Mousinho said: ‘The situation with Zak is that contract negotiations are ongoing. We’re hopeful we can agree something with Zak over the next week or so. We’ll see how it goes. It’s not something that’s been on the forefront of my mind, but it’s been at the forefront of the club’s mind because it’s being dealt with. It’s not being dealt with by me by design, because I’m out here.’ | Jason Brown/ProSportsImages
10. Zak Swanson continued
Mousinho added: ‘Zak’s big challenge is maintaining his fitness. He managed to do that for large parts of last year, but unfortunately picked up an injury towards the back end of last season. With Zak, we’re really happy with the talent and the promise he’s shown. He also dealt with a couple of things off the pitch we’re all aware of. With Zak, there is no way we’d not offer him a deal if we didn’t think he was good enough. So he’s going to be a promising addition if we can make it happen.’ | National World
11. Abu Kamara latest
Rich Hughes said: ‘We would never want to rule that out because if we could find a scenario to bring Abu back, we’d absolutely love to. The truth is he exceeded a lot of expectations and performed to a really high level last season, which personally puts him into a really strong position. We’ll just have to see how his pre-season (with Norwich) pans it and stay close to it and stay close to all the conversations. It’s going to be very difficult based on the success he’s had, but I wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand at this point. If there was an opportunity where the player became available, considering how he enjoyed working with the group of players and the coaching staff and being at the club, I think that would be an attractive option for him, if something came up again.’ | National World
12. Further arrivals on free transfers
Mousinho said: 'There’s still a few (free transfer options) floating about but most of the time the players have been picked up. Players tend to want to be somewhere for the start of pre-season. If there are players moving on and they are still at their club, it’s looking to be a loan or maybe a fee later in the window. It’s starting to evolve and most of the frees are gone. In our case, the two frees we had right at the top of our list in Josh Murphy and Jordan Williams, we managed to get done early. We managed to get them in the building and are delighted with that.' | Portsmouth FC