‘It’s going to be interesting’: Portsmouth chief’s revealing insight as he drops transfer window hint

Andy Cullen doesn’t expect business in the new-look transfer window to accelerate until the end of next month.

But the Pompey chief executive is still expecting an ‘interesting’ period of player trading to unfold, with the days counting down to the start of business commencing.

It’s now just over a week until the shutters come up on the window on June 1, with a slightly different dynamic to how things will run this year.

The Fifa window runs from June 1 to June 10, with an ‘exceptional registration window’ to benefit teams competing in the Fifa Club World Cup.

Sign up for our free Pompey email to follow the latest coverage from Neil Allen and Jordan Cross

With the window allowed to be open for a maximum 89 days it then re-opens on June 16 and runs until 7pm on September 1 - with the timeline being mirrored for EFL clubs.

Last summer it was 15 Pompey new faces brought in, with the previous year 14 recruited ahead of the League One title-winning season.

Cullen feels it will be another brisk period, but not one to match previous years in terms of volume.

The Pompey chief’s believes the early sparring won’t develop into something more substantial until later next month, who may point to relatively quiet opening for his club.

He said: ‘It’s going to be an interesting summer I think, though we don’t have to do the same volume of players we did last year.

‘For us last year it was a bit different.

‘The early window in June is primarily for teams playing in the Club World Cup and maybe Premier League teams to have some time to get some players contracted.

May, as ever, is one where of those markets where you don’t see a huge amount of activity.

‘I saw a couple of players come into the Championship, but I think one of those was done in January with a pre-contract.

‘I think you won’t see much activity now, you tend to start getting a bit of activity in June and a bit more at the end of the month.

‘In the year we won League One we did a lot of early business, and then coming into the Championship we found it more punctuated over the course of the entire summer.

‘It wasn’t as quick as we might have liked, but nevertheless we brought in 14 players over that period.

‘A lot of what is going on now is clubs speaking to players and players speaking to various clubs.

‘The players are on breaks, they come back and then business tends to ramp up a little bit before they come back for pre-season.’

The squad issue Pompey chief wants to avoid this time

One thing Cullen is mindful of this summer is Pompey being able to utilise their resources to the best of their ability. That may well mean moving fringe players on, as business has to be conducted within the framework of the 25-man squad limit in place in the Championship.

The success of that may well be important, as Pompey seek to avoid a repeat of the situation which led to Tom Lowery and Ben Stevenson being deregistered at the end of last summer’s window.

Cullen added: ‘We’ve got a squad cap in terms of 25 players over 21 including goalkeepers. We want to make sure we don’t have a situation where we had a couple of players in Tom Lowery and Ben Stevenson, who were with us for that period but couldn’t be selected.

‘We want to make sure we utilise our resources as best we can.’

YOUR NEXT POMPEY READ: ‘One of best in English football’ - how Fratton factor’s proving key in Pompey transfer chase.