Portsmouth chief responds to frustrated Danny Cowley's pleas to improve Blues' training pitches

However, the Blues’ chief executive has warned potential work will not be imminent.

Cowley last week raised concerns over the standard of playing surfaces at Pompey’s Copnor Road training home.

The Blues’ head coach is adamant the pitches have impacted upon his team’s preparation during the winter months.

It’s an issue Cullen recognises, with the club sanctioning an independent survey to come up with a solution to the ongoing problem.

Yet he insists Pompey’s ‘massive’ capital expenditure programme dictates training pitches may take time to be addressed.

Cullen told The News: ‘We would like to upgrade all our pitches, but have a massive capital expenditure programme at the moment where we can’t do everything at once.

‘We have capital expenditure in the stadium, capital expenditure on Roko, and capital expenditure going on in lots of other areas with different projects.

‘So we have to go through a programme over the next few years where we can plan everything in to get it ready.

‘At the moment, we are carrying out some independent surveys which will give us a clear indication of the exact nature of what we need to do to pitches at Fratton Park and Roko, which will enable us to then plot the programme going forward.

‘What I want to do is bring someone in who has no vested interest in selling you pitches and can give the right advice. Then we can look at the type of pitch that we’d like to put.

‘We are lucky in that we have three pitches to train on at Roko, which is probably more than most of our League One brethren.

‘They are soil-based pitches, as is the case of most League One training grounds, but we would like to upgrade them, we’ve obviously got the other project down there in terms of a 3G Astro pitch as well.

‘However, considering all the investment going on at the moment, this has to be planned over a period of time.

‘We will get there, it’s just a question of understanding exactly what we need to do – and then getting the timing right and expenditure properly planned in.

‘We are together on it, we all know what we need to do, but it comes down to that degree of timing and getting all the different projects which we need to do.’

Fratton Park is currently undergoing an £11.5m redevelopment programme.

Phase 3, which centres on the South Stand, is to begin on April 4, with the entire project culminating in the Milton End in the summer of 2024.

Yet addressing the quality of training ground pitches at the Roko home they purchased in June 2021 after an initial long-term lease, also remains on the radar.

Cullen added: ‘It depends on what the training pitch surveys throw up and what we need to do.

‘We need to know exactly what is under there, we know it’s solid based, but how much clay is under there? Then how is the drainage working or not working?

‘What you don’t want to do is put your drainage in and then decide you are going to go for a sand-based pitch, because soil and sand are quite different types of drainage.

‘If you are going to do something at Fratton Park and something at the training ground, which do you prioritise first, for example? We would want to have a pitch at the training ground replicating what Fratton Park is in terms of soil and surface.

‘Every project is really, really critical. It’s bringing everything together and making sure we have a proper plan in terms of going forward.’

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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