Portsmouth transfer nostalgia: Harry Redknapp insists midfielder's not for sale as Spurs, Manchester City, Aston Villa, Liverpool and Auxerre stars are targeted

The Blues were hoping to beat Marseille and Wigan to the signature of Auxerre striker Mwaruwari Benjani.

They had also spoken to Spurs over midfielder Michael Brown and defender Noe Pamarot.

Pompey remained keen on Manchester City striker Robbie Fowler, while Redknapp also confirmed his interest in Aston Villa full-back Mark Delaney.

But central to his survival plan was keeping O’Neil at the club.

At the time, Liverpool were interested in the 22-year-old midfielder. But Redknapp told The News at the time: ‘I’ll hang on to Gary in January.

'We can’t afford to let good players go. We’ve got to keep people like him here.

‘I know people say I loaned Gary out to Cardiff, but he was a good player when I was first here. I had to loan him out to play because I had so many goodmidfielders and it was difficult for him to get in the side.

‘But he’s got better and older and stronger and he’s a terrific footballer.’

Reports in France at the time claimed Pompey were willing to pay £5m for Benjani. The 27-year-old Zimbabwe international had found himself out of favour at Auxerre under Jacques Santini.

He was reported to have been offered a three-and-a-half year deal at Fratton Park.

Former Sheffield United midfielder Brown, who spent a short time on loan at Pompey in the late 90s, had hardly played for Spurs during the 2005-06 season.

Pamarot cost Spurs £1.75m from Nice but had played just 23 minutes in north London.

Middlesbrough were also keen on Delaney - a right-sided defender, who was due to be out of contract that summer.

Redknapp added: ‘I think I’ll have some good players coming in.

‘You’ve got to convince the ones coming in that you are going to build a good team again.

‘If we can stay up this year we’ll build a team that won’t be in this situation next season.

‘I like Mark Delaney. I think Villa would probably want to keep him because he belongs to them at the moment. But he’s a good player.’

Spurs midfielder Sean Davis and defender Anthony Gardner, plus Liverpool defender Djimi Traore, had also been linked with moves to Fratton Park.