On this day: Portsmouth chief Peter Storrie defends decision to sell Glen Johnson to Liverpool

At the time the Pompey full-back was poised for an £18m switch to Liverpool – just six months into a new contract.

It was a deal which upset some supporters, who accused Pompey of lacking ambition by selling the England international.

With Sulaiman Al Fahim’s takeover also nearing completion, the sale of the star player was seen among some quarters as a massive backward step.

Yet Storrie insisted the club had been left with no choice after sticking to a verbal agreement made with Johnson when he penned a fresh four-and-a-half year deal in January 2008.

That was to let the 24-year-old leave if a club who have qualified for the Champions League came in for him.

The player himself was keen to leave Fratton Park to play in European competition and enhance his international chances.

And with a massive profit on a player recruited for just £4m from Chelsea two years previous, then Blues executive chairman Storrie believed it was the right thing to do.

He told The News at the time: ‘How can you question the sale of a player to a club with Champions League football on offer?

‘We can’t compete with that. Liverpool can offer Glen things we can’t.

‘Of course we don’t want to lose him and I know for a fact Glen is happy here.

‘But when a top-four club with Champions League football comes knocking it’s very, very difficult.

‘When he signed his new contract he asked us if we would give him permission to talk to a Champions League club if they should come in for him.

‘This was a verbal agreement and we have honoured that.

‘He wants to cement his England place and he feels moving to a top-four club can help him do that.

‘We want to keep him, he was happy to be here – that’s why he signed a new contract – but now he has the chance of Champions League football and he wants to go. That has nothing to do with our ambition as a club.’