Pompey owners deliver Jackett verdict

The club’s owners have pledged their support for the Blues boss at the end of his first season at the helm.

Jackett guided his team to eighth spot after returning to League One this term, in a season where they flirted with the play-offs for the majority of the campaign.

That’s been perceived as decent progress after the 56-year-old succeeded Paul Cook last June.

It’s a view echoed by the club’s hierarchy, who have been impressed by Jackett’s calm leadership.

Pompey director and Tornante president, Andy Redman, reserved his praise for the manager’s work and feels his approach dovetails with the owner’s plans.

Redman said: ‘We think he (Jackett) had a very good season. We said that at the end-of-season awards.

‘It’s hard to say it was a great season. Could this team have made the play-offs? The maths at the end of the season said we could have.

‘But we think he did a very good job, and we think he is mapping to what we’re talking about in terms of long-term strategy.

‘I know that, if anything, that is the area in theory that fans are most frustrated with us (as a club) over the years.

‘We’re long term and not week to week. If some fans are short term, these owners aren’t.

‘So we’ll make less week-to-week decisions than some fans would like.

‘But that’s how our ownership is going to go.

‘The current owners 100-per-cent want to move away from the knee jerk.

‘That may well be other people’s strategy, but it just isn’t ours.’

With the season at a close, eyes will be on squad planning and recruitment among supporters in the coming weeks.

There will be plenty of work taking place on that front among the Pompey management, but Redman believes it may not be as frenetic as some people anticipate.

He added: ‘It’s a busy summer of recruitment, a little bit, but because we’ve put longer-term plans in place it’s a lot less busy for us than you might imagine.

‘Now, that said, Kenny, Joe Gallen, Tony Brown and Mark Catlin are making lots of phone calls.

‘But Andy Redman pretty much knows what they are doing. So it’s a busy summer of recruitment for the people who have to do it, but the planning is in place.

‘There will be things which change in the summer, but we’re well organised.

‘I can’t promise about future seasons, but I can say we will not have massive squad overhauls in the future.

‘That’s because of how much planning is going into each window way in advance.

‘Obviously, it will be gauged on what happens – but that’s the way we’re thinking about it.

‘That’s the way the management and staff are thinking, but now we have to prove that to people.’