Wrong time, wrong position: The curious case of the costly Portsmouth transfer mistake from Sunderland

Denver Hume’s time at Fratton Park remains a curious contradiction.

The £200,000 flop who wasn’t actually that bad is the left-back’s legacy from a highly forgettable two-year stay on the south coast.

Hume’s time with Pompey proved to be a costly failure, there can be little argument about that, mustering just 31 appearances.

Yet there are caveats which deserve to be considered when reflecting on a Blues career which can be regarded as one of the most puzzling of recent times.

Danny Cowley splashed out £200,000 to land him from Sunderland in January 2022, a significant sum in the post-Kenny Jackett era.

The head coach had introduced a back three at the start of December - six weeks earlier - and viewed Hume to be a perfect fit at left wing-back.

Being an attack-minded player, it made sense. Particularly with winger Reeco Hackett having been trialled there, along with Lee Brown, who was a more conventional full-back.

Besides, Cowley wished to offload Brown following a breakdown in their relationship, with the Checkatrade Trophy winner an influential figure and big voice within the dressing room.

Certainly, in a footballing sense, Hume seemed a sensible piece of business - only for Pompey’s boss to effectively scrap the wing-back system just three matches after his arrival.

Hume’s opening two games - Charlton and Oxford United - ended in defeat, but at least there was a 2-1 victory over Burton in February 2022 on his third outing.

That signalled an impressive finish to the campaign for Cowley’s men, winning 10 of their last 18 games and losing just three times.

Unfortunately for Hume, it coincided with reverting to primarily a back four, with the ex-Sunderland man starting just five of them as Connor Ogilvie was preferred at left-back.

In fairness, from mid-March, a prolapsed disc in his back sidelined him for the next five months and, from that point, he struggled to break back into the head coach’s plans.

There were a flurry of appearances in the dying weeks of Cowley’s time at the helm, albeit influenced by the need to switch Ogilvie to centre-half, and then a start at Spurs in the FA Cup.

However, upon the arrival of John Mousinho, Hume was named in a Pompey League One side once over the next 12 months - when Ogilvie was missing with a dead leg.

It was April 2023 when the new head coach revealed the Blues’ desire to offload Hume: ‘I just want to be fair to him, that’s all. I don’t want to lose Denver, I see him as a valuable asset around the place, we just have to take a bit of realism.’

Last week on deadline day - more than nine months later - those ties were finally severed following a free transfer switch to Grimsby for the remainder of the season.

Pigeon-holed as a wing-back at a club which has largely operated with a back four for at least 18 months, Hume was a victim of playing systems rather than his personal performances.

Without doubt the highlight was a 2-1 win at Shrewsbury in February 2022, his fifth outing - and as a wing-back - but otherwise struggled to raise performances above anything more than satisfactory.

Granted, there was the Hampshire Senior Cup at Bournemouth, when painfully torn apart by David Brooks, who bagged a hat-trick in the opening 37 minutes.

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Yet otherwise Hume was merely so-so. Not dreadful, yet not impressive - merely bang average. Perhaps best summed up by shining in that AFC Wimbledon Bristol Street Motors Trophy debacle in December.

A popular player around the dressing room, there was never any sulking, his professionalism around the club when out of favour was a credit to him and resulted in featuring twice this season, irrespective of having no future at Fratton Park.

Tellingly, Hume was included on last summer’s pre-season tour to Spain and continued to train with the first-team, rather than suffering the ignominy of exile, which has befallen many players in similar circumstances.

Perhaps Hume was the right player at the wrong time in the wrong system. What is certain, however, is he represents one of Pompey’s costliest transfer mistakes of modern times.