Danny Cowley makes his Portsmouth ambitions clear as he heads into first full season as Blues boss

Here, in a first-person piece, he spells out exactly what it means to him to manage the Blues and how he wants to make the entire city proud of the football club – with a little bit of help from the fans.

I look at Portsmouth and it’s a brilliant football club with such a proud history.

People here quite rightly want to reflect on that history, and that’s something we’ve noticed in the time we’ve been at Fratton Park.

But we want you to be able to start looking forward again. We want to give you a team to be proud of - now.

So we are going to try to bring a process, and we want to try to bring a clear way of working to this club.

We want to bring a game idea and identity to this wonderful football club - and that’s what we are going to be working tirelessly and relentlessly towards achieving.

When people think of Portsmouth, they think of the supporters. They think of that brilliant, old stadium with its tradition and history.

And they think of the phenomenal atmosphere which is created when those two elements come together.

We want to ultimately create a team that all the people in Portsmouth and everyone associated with the football club can be proud of. That is my overriding ambition for this club.

And make no bones about, you are going to be vitally important for us.

You only have to look at the club’s form at Fratton Park last season to know how crucial the Portsmouth supporters are.

If you looked at the home form from the 19-20 season compared to the 20-21 season, it’s abundantly clear.

Certainly out of all 72 EFL clubs and, in all probability all 92 English clubs, I don’t think any single club suffered as much as Portsmouth without their supporters.

I think the first ambition has to be to try to improve on what we did last season.

We hope to win games - I’m used to winning games of football. I’ve been lucky enough to be involved in a lot of clubs where we have won games consistently.

My life is a lot better when we’re winning games. If I win on the Saturday, I tend to be happy until the Tuesday - and if I win on the Tuesday I tend to be happy until the Saturday. That’s how my existence tends to work!

I really like the ambition in football of trying to win on Saturday. Then once you do that, you focus on the next game and try to win that.

If we can have the aim of trying to win the next game in front of us when we wake up on a Monday morning, then that’s a really good ambition. I think that gives you real focus.

And, let’s have it right, this club should be winning football matches. We’re Portsmouth and we should always be winning.

I have to be honest and say this has been a very tough window for us - the toughest I’ve ever known.

There are a number of clubs with new owners, and they have been able to spend significant amounts of money.

We are operating under a different model - quite rightly so - and are being ran in a very intelligent and sustainable way.

But we are determined to be competitive in this division, and I won’t take any shortcuts to ensuring that’s the case.

We’ve made some good signings and brought in some good Championship experience, with some young players for the future.

In terms of further business, sometimes you have to be open minded and do your due diligence to make sure you have a real clear handle on the market.

You need to know which players fit your game idea and the way you play.

Secondly, they need to make the team significantly better, because we’ll only make change for significant gain. And thirdly, we need to make sure they are good value for money.

There’s been a big difference this summer in what clubs are prepared to pay, but we’re going to worry about ourselves, get the very best value with what we have available and try to be as competitive as we possibly can.

But here we are at the dawn of a new season with everything to look forward to and everything to gain. That is our mindset.

Before we came to Portsmouth in March we were warned not to take the job - and there were probably many reasons not to.

But life is for living - and we believe in our skill set, we believe in our work ethic and we believe in Portsmouth as a football club at every level.

We also feel really privileged to be in this position to be able to manage this outstanding institution. Together we truly believe we can succeed and achieve.

Play up Pompey,

Danny Cowley