The two Portsmouth departures which provide damning indictment on increasingly scarce Fratton Park resources
It’s a damning indictment of Pompey’s Academy system that their current poster boy is a 33-year-old who spent more than a decade away from Fratton Park.
Since May 2018, only Haji Mnoga and Harry Jewitt-White have graduated from the Blues’ youth set-up to feature in the Football League for their home-town club.
Admittedly, there have been sporadic outings for promising kids in the EFL Trophy under its various guises, while Koby Mottoh was handed a Carabao Cup start against Peterborough last season.
Nonetheless, league involvement has been extremely rare - and the two beneficiaries over the last six years have now been released.
Looking back, 2014-15 was particularly prolific for young talent, with Conor Chaplin, Ben Close, Adam May and Bradly Tarbuck all handed League Two involvement, albeit in a season which produced the lowest finish in the club’s Football League history.
Brandon Haunstrup entered the fray in May 2016, replacing Enda Stevens at left-back for the last league match of the 2015-16 season against Northampton before play-off semi-finals got underway.
Then Alex Bass, who had been around the first-team for several years, started the final League One game of the 2017-18 campaign against Peterborough, keeping a clean sheet in a 2-0 success.
Subsequently, only Mnoga and Jewitt-White have followed that pathway, totalling seven league appearances between them.
Nowadays Marlon Pack is held up as the inspiration for local youngsters, yet he graduated from the youth set-up in 2009, when Pompey were still a Premier League side.
This summer’s departures of Mnoga and Jewitt-White drew little surprise. Likewise, there was hardly an uproar from supporters, with both long since fading from first-team contention.
Jewitt-White featured twice in the Bristol Street Motors Trophy in 2023-24, including a start in November’s 2-1 success at Leyton Orient, yet spent the season on loan at the Hawks.
As for Mnoga, the last 18 months of his Fratton Park career was spent on loan at Aldershot. Before that was Gillingham, Weymouth, Bromley and the Rocks in the name of development.
Since making his Pompey debut in October 2018 as a 16-year-old in the Checkatrade Trophy at Crawley, the powerful defender has totalled 18 appearances and one goal.
Now aged 22, he has not featured for the Blues competitively since August 2022, yet, by all accounts, has flourished with regular first-team football for the Shots and international with Tanzania.
Mnoga was actually presented with successive League One starts under Kenny Jackett in the 2020-21 season, a breakthrough campaign when he totalled five league outings and nine overall.
Following a debut at right-back in a 4-1 home win over Crewe in November 2020, he returned to the starting XI three months later for a 1-1 draw against Gillingham.
Mnoga then retained his place for the midweek trip to Doncaster - although was now operating as a right wing-back.
With Jack Whatmough, Sean Raggett and Rasmus Nicolaisen serving as a back three, the Blues found themselves 1-0 down at the break - and the youngster was substituted.
He never played a league match again for Pompey, with the Blues favouring sending him out on loan to develop rather than keeping him in the building.
As for Jewitt-White, he was aged 16 years, seven months and 16 days when he made his Blues bow in the Papa John’s Trophy against West Ham Under-21s in November 2020.
He would go on to total nine appearances, including starting against Accrington in April 2023, one of two league outings for the midfielder in the 2022-23 season.
Bass made 41 Pompey outings before being sold to Sunderland in June 2022 after accepting he needed to leave Fratton Park for regular first-team football.
Absolutely no other Academy graduate has come as close to being a first-team presence in recent years - other than veteran Marlon Pack.