The England international looks set to move back to White Hart Lane despite the Pompey boss' plans to hold talks with the striker today – and a reported £20m bid from Italian giants Juventus.

Adams will hope to use a chunk of the expected £16m Defoe sale to bring Gary O'Neil back to Fratton Park.

And he has also targeted a replacement up front, with Lens' Ivory Coast international Aruna Dindane linked, as well as Valencia midfielder Edu.

The chase for Gary O'Neil looks set to run, though, with Middlesbrough playing hard-ball over the former Pompey favourite.

The midfielder underlined his desire to return to the south coast by handing in a weekend transfer request at Middlesbrough.

Gareth Southgate left the 25-year-old out of Boro's FA Cup win over Barrow on Saturday.

O'Neil is desperate to return to Fratton Park and has already been the subject of one bid.

Boro have publicly stated they will not sell the midfielder, and accused Pompey of unsettling him.

But the Teesside outfit have already lined up Crystal Palace's Ben Watson as his replacement and are keen on Fulham's Jimmy Bullard.

And with the Defoe deal set to be finalised this week, Adams was confident new signings would soon be arriving.

He said: 'I'm trying my hardest to improve the club and have a recruitment team trying their hardest to improve the club.

'I have to balance the books and try to manage the football club. It's all part of the job.'

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FANS' COMMENTS

No no no no no.... Why are WE not looking at the likes of Bullard, he is a much better midfield player that can score goals. Gary was one of the players sold to make way for the 'new dawn' of ambition at the Club and look what happened - we won the FA Cup.. Cataclysmic step backwards if Gary is re-signed.
Tony said "judge me at the end of January", well Tony if that is the best you can do, I fear for MY club wholesale.. Sacha, I would rather you gave him NO MONEY than waste in on also ran players.
Geoff Beattie

I can't believe we are not being told "WHY" Defoe wants to leave, he seemed ok a couple of weeks ago. If Adams has put his nose out of joint for dropping him for a couple of games then fine he should be shown the door, although we did initially persuade him to come to us by promising him first team football, so leaving out your top scorer seems stupid to say the least, i hope we use the money wisely and get a top striker who has a proven track record (like Thierry Henry) if Tony could speak to his old team mate and get him on board that would be a real coup! We really, reeally need a strong midfielder who pops up with the odd few goals too, someone like Bullard or Scott Brown would be good, we need to go in with a big bid to nab them though.
Pompeymatt

Could not agree more with Geoff B about O Neill. It is going backwards to sign a very average Premier player. We need a bit of quality and hard work in our midfield. How about Kevin Nolan to graft and Bullard to create and score……..even get Pedro back from Rangers…we must go forward!!
TonyP

Whilst I understand the view of some, that signing Gary O'Neil would be a backward step, in reality it is not. The problem is that compared to a midfield including Muntari and Diarra, O'Neil looks less capable but those guys are long gone. In reality, of the midfielders we have today, only Kranjcar has the talent to play at Premier League standard and he is clearly not match fit after injuries, etc. Our other midfielders are Davis, who is borderline good enough, then Hughes, Bouba-Diop, Little, Mvuemba, Utaka, Thomas, etc and none of them are remotely good enough. And before all the Hughes lovers start, I admit that you have to love the guy's attitude but he is too slow, does not score goals, does not create and has very limited passing ability over a distance greater than about 10 yards. If he was half as good as so some think, ask yourself why nobody ever tries to buy him! So, the bottom line is that O'Neil is a better midfielder than all but Kranjcar so he would be a good addition.
Wayne, Horndean