Potential escape route for transfer-listed forgotten Portsmouth midfielder emerges
Midfielder Abdoulaye Kamara was told this summer that his time at Pompey had come to and end
France’s Ligue 2 looks set to offer forgotten Pompey midfielder Abdoulaye Kamara his best route out of Fratton Park this summer.
The 20-year-old, who has not featured in a Blues match-day since last season’s third-round FA Cup defeat at Wycombe, is free to leave the club just 12 months into a four-year contract he signed last summer.
The former Borussia Dortmund and Paris Saint-Germain player was informed of Pompey’s decision following his return for pre-season testing at the end of June - a call that saw him left out of head coach John Mousinho’s travelling party for the pre-season training camp in Slovakia.
Since then, Kamara has spent the majority of his time back in Paris with his family and has been training independently as his search for a new club continues.
Speaking to The News last week, Mousinho said he expected a move for the Guinean to be ‘tied up in the next week or so’. Pompey are also anticipated to take a massive hit on the fee they paid to bring the former Dortmund youngster to the UK - an undisclosed transfer outlay said to be around the one million euros mark, according to some reports.
Now, with just 10 days of the transfer window remaining, it has emerged that the second tier of French football could facilitate an escape that should suit all parties.
According to media outlet sportsboom.co.uk, several Ligue 2 clubs have expressed an interest in Kamara, with the player also keen to secure a move back to France.
Abdoulaye Kamara’s disastrous year at Pompey
There were high hopes about what the former Paris Saint-Germain youth product could achieve at Fratton Park after becoming Pompey’s 10th signing of the 2024 summer transfer window.
But he failed to reach the heights anticipated of him, which increased after a man-of-the-match performance off the bench against Sunderland last August.
Indeed, Kamara featured fleetingly from that stage, making just four more sub appearances for Pompey in the Championship - including a 35-minute run-out in the 6-1 defeat at Stoke last October.
His one and only Blues start came in the FA Cup defeat at Wycombe in January, with Kamara producing a dreadful display in the 2-0 loss at Adams Park.
From there, he never featured in another Blues squad over the remaining 22 games of the season, which spoke volumes about how distant he was from the first-team picture.
What John Mousinho has said about Abdoulaye Kamara
Mousinho has said on a couple of occasions that he played a part in Kamara’s Fratton Park frustrations, after changing his side’s style of play during their first season back in the Championship.
In July, he told The News: ‘We’ve had a conversation about what it looks like for him this year and Abdu needs to go and play somewhere. We want to give him the best opportunity to try to do that.
‘We know he’s not going to be part of the side or the squad this year, so he needs to go and find something else. That was very amicable and we shook hands - now he’s looking for other opportunities.
‘Sometimes things just don’t work out, for whatever reason, and a lot of that is on myself and the way we changed the playing style towards the end of last season. We probably recruited him for a certain role which we didn't end up using.
‘I have always acknowledged that there’s plenty of blame I will take for that and sometimes these things just don’t work out.
‘He settled in this country and was absolutely fine in training, there were no issues there. It’s just a case of the way we were playing and the situation we were in last season - and the playing style we anticipate this season not really fitting Abs’ own strengths.’