Portsmouth boss gives revealing insight into spending power as he details reasons for not pursuing Norwich City ace amid £4.5m Hull City move

And the Blues boss believes there should be no regrets about his club pulling the plug on their pursuit of the League One title winner, ahead of his £4.5m move to Hull City from Norwich City 

Kamara was one of Pompey’s big summer target, as they sought a return to Fratton Park for the winger after he lit up their League One title win.

A stack of clubs were on the 21-year-old’s trail, however, with their Championship rivals stumping up a transfer fee few expected Kamara to move for.

In a summer where Pompey also missed out on Alex Robertson, who moved to Cardiff City after a fee was agreed with Manchester City, Mousinho believes it’s an insight into what his club are competing with.

A reported £500,000 was paid for defender Ibane Bowat, with the likes Jacob Farrell, Abdoulaye Kamara, Harvey Blair, Elias Sorensen and Reuben Swann commanding transfer fees.

Mousinho explained he feels Pompey can stump up seven-figure fees for players, but they are not yet able to match more established Championship rivals.

He said: ‘That (Kamara’s move) is the level - and it’s a really good thing for everyone to see.

‘There’s nothing we would’ve liked more than to bring Abu Kamara back to the football club.

‘But at £4.5m it would have absolutely dwarfed the money we had available to spend on players.

‘Also, and I have no idea of the wage demands, but when you go for £4.5m it’s probably going to be a lot more than we can afford to pay - at this stage.

‘It’s something we completely accept - we’re not there yet and we’re not spending £4.5m on players.

‘We’re in the hunt for players, though, around the £1m mark and can go above that.

‘We also want to make sure we do business wisely, but, at that level, we’re not quite there yet.

‘I think so (fans understand the situation). Certainly from our perspective, I wouldn’t know the ins and outs of the deal, but I’d be pushing for those sort of players to come in the building.

‘So when it gets to it and we find out Hull have bid that amount of money, and if it wasn’t it would be very close to that, we then have to hold our hands up and say we did everything we could.

‘We were ready to go in with a sizeable amount of money when it came to that, but unfortunately nowhere near that.’