Excited Pompey fans are having to wait patiently for the summer transfer window to open.
More than six weeks have passed since the League One title was secured against Barnsley last month. And while plenty has happened at Fratton Park since those wonderful celebratory scenes, no new signings have arrived to bolster the feel-good factor that has been palpable around PO4 ever since confirmation of the Blues’ new Championship status.
Pompey have stressed no new signings will be announced until after the transfer window opens officially on Friday June 14. That’s still two weeks away, which will seem like forever, especially when a number of clubs have begun announcing new arrivals ahead of the official opening for business.
That, however, gives the Blues plenty of time to quietly go about their business - and to spring a surprise or two come next month. But what are the key transfer issues going into this transfer window? What’s the priorities? What needs to be done and what’s head coach John Mousinho said about the key issues at the centre of the Blues’ transfer plans this summer?
Since the 2023-24 season came to the close, The News has quizzed the Pompey boss on a whole range of issues that will shape the course of this window. Here’s his responses to 20 key factors that will be at play over the coming months.
13. The importance of pre-season
Mousinho said: ‘We’re going to leave that open (the number of signings), a lot of that will be down to how players report in pre-season. We’ve seen a huge amount from the players this year. Once we step up to the next level we need to reassess and make sure that any player who comes into the squad, whether they’ve played four games or 40 games this season, they can make the step up. We need to see that every day in training. If we bring in players we know have competed at the level, we will be able to see them against our lads who haven’t made the step up. We’ll then be able to see that and make an assessment from there.’ | National World
14. Squad depth
Mousinho said: 'We probably need two more players in the squad compared to this season. We started off with 24, which is probably a decent number, but when the injuries started to pile up, we had to make that 26. ‘It’s amusing now, but at one point our injured starting line-up was something like Swanson, Poole, McIntyre, Ogilvie, Lowery, Morrell and then a front four of Devlin, Scully, Anjorin and Lang. You can’t do that with a 24-man squad and try to get away with it, hence why we increased the size of the squad towards the back end of the year. We ended up with 24 fit pros, with Josh Dockerill coming back making it 25, yet still 6-7 on the injury list. We needed to bolster it with the five in January. Squad size is never an exact science and we’ll pick up injuries, but for the Championship it will be around 24-26, especially considering you can have nine on the bench now.' | National World
15. The internartional market
Mousinho said: 'We do look everywhere. You can see that from our recruitment which was as close as Northern Ireland and as far as Australia. We do look everywhere and we are really open-minded to what we are able to bring in. From some countries it’s a bit more difficult to bring players in.Australia is a good example. Australia chucks out a lot of good players, but not many of them are eligible to come over. We have to be wary of that. But we will certainly be looking in the same places as before. Maybe once you go up a level one or two other markets open up, too. Certainly from our point of view, they are not markets which are foreign to us. We just have to be realistic about what sort of players we can bring in.’ | National World
16. Ryley Towler's future
Mousinho said: ‘Ryley has that ability to be a top-end player and it has been a tough one for him, he’s been really, really unlucky. He lost his place in the side to Conor Shaughnessy and was unable to regain it. Ryley is such a great kid, I haven’t had a single problem with him. He keeps himself going in training, in the dressing room when we win games he doesn’t sulk, he’s always in there joining in.’ | Jason Brown/ProSportsImages