From the despair of QPR to preserving their Championship status just six games later, it has been another emotionally exhausting season for Pompey.
Certainly few among the Fratton faithful wouldn’t have anticipated staying up with two games to spare after that 6-1 hammering at Loftus Road.
Still, John Mousinho has once again overseen survival, steering the Blues into 18th position and collecting one more point than last term.
And here are Neil Allen’s Pompey player ratings for the season…
1. Pompey boss John Mousinho has been speaking about Terry Devlin's future.
Terry Devlin was voted as The News/Sports Mail's Player of the Season. | The News
2. Nicolas Schmid - 6.5
(34 games) Having set the bar high, the Austrian will inevitably be judged against those impressive 2024-25 performances in his maiden Pompey season. Unfortunately, the comparison isn’t flattering. There were a number of costly mistakes such as Coventry and Watford, poor moments such as QPR’s first goal, and generally some uncertain matches. Whether his displays were impacted by that 10-game spell out injured with a fractured right hand is perhaps open to debate. Yet Schmid still went backwards in his second Blues season. | Getty Images
3. Ben Killip - 6
(5 games) Handed a first-team chance after Schmid’s broken hand at Southampton, but that lasted one-and-a-half games before himself being replaced by Bursik. Suspect kicking meant the fans were never convinced by the third-choice goalkeeper and, once Schmid was fit, he was soon jettisoned from the squad until the final two matches, when Mousinho wanted to rotate. In fairness, he did nothing wrong against Stoke and Birmingham, looking very comfortable and barely putting a foot wrong. | Local Library
4. Josef Bursik - 7
(11 games) A late arrival around deadline day when Pompey paid a fee to Club Brugge for his services, the goalkeeper was probably one of just two summer recruits who impressed. An England youth international who had lost his way over the years, Bursik performed strongly after dislodging Killip to replace the injured Schmid from September, making his debut at Ipswich. Was handed a recall at Stoke in the penultimate game, only to tear his quad on a goal kick after four minutes, putting him out for up to eight weeks. | Graham Hunt/ProSportsImages