Sporting director Rich Hughes has admitted at least nine new arrivals will walk through the Fratton Park doors in the coming months has he and head coach John Mousinho look to put their stamp on the current first team.
The aim will be to construct a squad that’s capable of finally ending what will be seven consecutive seasons in League One.
So expectations will be high when business can officially be completed upon the window opening on June 10.
But apart from a host of new names calling Fratton Park home, what else has been said in the build-up to this summer?
Well, we’ve taken a look back at our recent conversations with the Blues’ key recruitment people to see actually what lies await.
Understandably, a range of key topics have been discussed as we’ve sought greater insight into Pompey’s plans.
Here’s a recap of what’s been said on those core issues.
17. New players living in the area
John Mousinho: ‘I can’t come in and all of a sudden demand everybody relocates to Portsmouth – but one thing I can do with the new players is at least have that conversation if they are willing to do that. You can ask the question and see what their plans are. If a player is saying they’re going to commute from Carlisle then we’d probably cross them off the list. It’s as simple as that. It’s a pretty reasonable ask for the new signings if we say what are your plans, fancy coming down to Portsmouth it’s not a bad city to live in. Then we’ll go from there. From a physical point of view, we want people to be ready to pop into training and not have a huge amount of travel in their legs. I want people living pretty close to the area, getting a feel of it, just being in and around it. I always wanted to move relatively close to the football club, just experience it and live it – and I think that’s what fans want.’ Photo: habibur rahman
18. Signing players with past injury records
Richard Hughes: ‘In terms of recruitment, we must sign players who carry fewer injuries. Absolutely. It’s very cliched, but the best ability is availability and, to be successful in League One, you’re going to be up and around 55-60 games. That’s in terms of a 46-game season, cup runs and the Papa Johns Trophy. So you need durable players, players who are going to be available week in, week out, and can remain physically fit and powerful. It is something we are factoring into our recruitment. Will everyone fall into that category? Probably not, so it’s something we must assess, trying to understand the mitigating circumstances of why they’ve been injured. We need fewer injured players – and that’s not a criticism of anything, it has always been hard.’ Photo: PinPep Media / Joe Pepler
19. Loan signings
Richard Hughes: ‘Never fall in love with a loan player, that’s one of the wisest things I’ve been told in football. It creates a hole in the team, then you’re looking to replace them, which can be one of the tough things. The biggest issue is they walk out the door at the end of the season. This summer alone we will probably have five loan players that will walk out the door and we’ll be looking for replacements, whether those are internal or external. It creates an extra pressure on recruitment. We want to be in a scenario where we’re not having a huge turnover of players every year, but sometimes, if you’re overly reliant on loans, that can be a natural byproduct of that. The amount spent on loans is an issue. We want to get away from spending a lot of money on loan players – and finding a way to make it a more financially viable part of the set-up’. Photo: Jason Brown
20. Waiting for signings to happen
Andy Cullen: ‘In terms of formally registering a player and getting it right across the line, that’s the 10th of June and then the window runs all the way until the 1st of September. That’s not to say that you don’t do anything until then. You’re talking to people.. We obviously can get to a position where you can get deals done but the danger is, if you start to announce them, you can’t formally register them and therefore you get yourself into a situation where someone can come and hijack you at the last minute if they know that a deal has been done. There’s a lot of posturing in this period as well. Clearly, we’ll be making approaches or offers to players once we’re legally able to do that. But sometimes you then get a little bit of trade-off by players and their representatives just to see if there’s a better deal around the corner, and I’m sure that over the next few weeks you’ll see lots and lots of players linked with Portsmouth Football Club. Some will have an element of truth, some will have no truth whatsoever. Agents need to try to up a better deal for their players – that’s the nature of the market place and it will be no different this year.’ Photo: Jason Brown