Portsmouth star dubbed 'fascinating' as EFL chairman makes statement on major change

Portsmouth remain in control of their own destiny, sitting atop the League One table with a five-point lead on nearest challengers Derby County. More importantly, Pompey have a nine-point lead over Bolton in third place, placing them within touching distance of promotion back to the Championship.

But with seven games remaining, there is still work to take care of, albeit the other side of the international break. In the meantime, we have rounded up all the latest surrounding Portsmouth and their rivals.

Yengi praise

Pompey forward Kusini Yengi has attracted praise from EFL expert Ali Maxwell after his recent performances. “He is an unbelievable athletic specimen," said Maxwell on the Not the Top 20 Podcast. "And, you’re starting to see – whether he’s missing open goals as he did in midweek or scoring goals as he did here – it’s a classic case of a modern striker’s skill set and profile being size and mobility and happiness to kind of engage with centre-backs and to run channels as well.

"It’s just more important that quote unquote shooting or finishing ability right now. Yengi is just such a fascinating profile because he’s clearly such a handful. It’s just really exciting stuff and it’s a fascinating piece of recruitment from Rich Hughes, the Portsmouth director of football, whose star sort of continues to rise really.”

Parry on regulators

EFL chairman Rick Parry has been speaking after the government approved plans for independent regulators in footall. “The regulator is clearly going to have an input into owners and directors tests,” Parry told reporters. “We think our current tests are pretty robust, and have definitely improved it over the years.

“Regulators will have greater statutory powers, criminal prosecutions for people who make false declarations etc, so the test will be sharper. But the key thing is that we get a fairer redistribution of revenues. The government has talked about Bury and Macclesfield but we tend to talk just as much about Derby, Reading, Bolton, Wigan – the biggest inequities come in the Championship and they float from the need for clubs to try and compete with the parachute clubs.

“You have parachute clubs receiving £50-odd-million, wage bills of £60-80m, all the other clubs receiving £10m in central funding and losing £15m a year trying to compete with wage bills of £30m or less. It is no surprise that in each of the last six years that two of the three promoted sides have been parachute clubs. That is where the major tension arises.

"If you look at what happened at Wigan, Derby or Reading, it isn’t that the owners came in with bad intentions or they were bad owners. In each case lots of money went in chasing the dream but it gets to the point where either the owners cannot continue funding or they don’t want to. And it leaves the clubs high and dry. What the regulator will do – and we have never been able to do – is they are going to require guarantees, bonds and assurances that the funding will be in place, that they can’t just turn the tap off."