Play Up Pompey

[FM_TNSSO]

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Play Up Pompey​

Portsmouth Football Club are a professional football team based on the south coast of England in Portsmouth, Hampshire. They currently compete in the English Football League Championship, the second tier of English football.

The club play their home games at Fratton Park, with a capacity of just shy of 21,000 supporters. Sharing their nickname, Pompey, with the local Naval Base in Portsmouth, the club were formed in 1898 and have played in blue and white since 1912 when they adopted their famous colours.

Portsmouth's early years began in the localised Southern and Western leagues, before being elected into the English Football League in 1920 as part of the newly formed Third Division. Two early promotions followed in 1924 and 1927 which saw the side rise to the First Division, becoming the first club south of London to do so.

Portsmouth's first major trophy came in 1939 when they won the FA Cup, having previously finished runners up twice in England's most prestigious domestic cup competition. They actually held that trophy for 7 years as normal football was suspended due to World War II. No club has ever held the trophy for such a long period and it is likely such a circumstance will ever occur again.

Once the war was over and football resumed in England, Portsmouth established themselves as one of the country's best sides, winning back to back First Division titles in 1948/49 and 1949/50. However, 10 years later, the club's fortunes changed drastically as they suffered relegations in 1959 and 1961 to find themselves back in the third tier. They didn't recover immediately either and in 1978 were relegated once again down to the Fourth Division.

Then 1980's were big for Portsmouth as they looked to rebuild and join England's elite clubs once again. They achieved the feat, winning three promotions in the decade (1980, 1983 and 1987) and were once again back in the top tier. But it was short lived as they were immediately relegated to the Second Division again, where they would remain for 15 years until 2003. During that time, the club also suffered their first round of financial troubles, when Terry Venables was famously able to buy a 51 percent stake in the club for just £1 in 1997, which he sold back just a year later.

During this time, the English football pyramid had also been restructured and the Second Division had effectively become the First Division (but still the second tier) with the birth of the English Premier League in 1992. It was in 2002/23 that Pompey were promoted to the Premier League for the first team and started to establish themselves as a modern day elite club, capped off by winning the 2008 FA Cup, only the second time they have ever won the trophy. During their Premier League reign, they were managed twice by Harry Redknapp who geared the club to a 9th placed finish in 2006/07 and 8th in 2007/08 after making some marquee signings that included Nwankwo Kanu, Arjan De Zeeuw, Sol Campbell, Glen Johnson, Milan Baros, Jermaine Defoe, David James and Niko Kranjcar.

That was about as good as it got as Portsmouth were then plagued by financial troubles once again and after being forced to sell off some of their best players and Harry Redknapp leaving the club for a second time, they were relegated in 2009/10 (although they did still make the FA Cup final again that year, losing to Chelsea).

And it wasn't the end of it either, as the club were forced into administration yet again in 2012, for the second time in 2 years. The club's troubles off the pitch were transferred onto it and they were relegated twice in two seasons and found themselves labouring in League 2 in 2013/14, virtually starting from scratch in a bid to rebuild the club and climb back up the pyramid. But it wasn't as easy as some might have been expecting, with 4 long seasons spent in the 4th tier before finally winning the league in 2016/17. League One proved even more of a struggle to conquer, taking a total of 7 seasons to finally win it and get back to the Championship.

The aim last season was simply to stay in the Championship and it was achieved with a 16th placed finish and now I take over as the new manager to see if I can lead them back to the promised land of the Premier League once again!

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[FM_TNSSO]

The Squad​

Goalkeepers

I'm not quite sure why the first team squad has 5 keepers in it, but I will certainly be looking to trim this by 1 or 2. Austrian, Nicolas Schmid, is head and shoulders above the rest and will clearly be the number 1 between the sticks for us this season. My only concern is that he doesn't have much in the way of competition for his spot in the team and should he pick up an injury, we might be in a spot of bother.

Defenders

For a club predicting to struggle in the bottom half of the table this season, our defence actually doesn't look too bad. We have good numbers across the back line and what looks like decent cover for each position as well. Josh Knight is the main man at the heart of the defence and his form this season could be imperative to any success we might have.

Meanwhile, right back Terry Devlin is a player I'll be looking to work with and develop. At just 21 years old, he is still likely to start his fair share of games and is one of the highest rated potential players at the club, so we will look to nurture that and bring out the best in the youngster.

Defensive Midfielders & Midfielders

Loads and loads of options here and a couple of our best players too. I certainly won't be able to complain about a lack of depth in the team this season and we should have all the cover we need for injuries or suspensions throughout the year. John Swift is a player that has played 353 professional games throughout his career with majority of them being at Championship level with West Brom and Reading, so he is someone I should really be looking to build the team around.

Also, Josh Murphy, twin brother of Newcastle's Jacob, will be one of our main threats down either wing and I'll be looking to him to both create and score goals.



Attacking Midfielders & Strikers

OK this is where I might need to do some work. We do have plenty of players that can attack from out wide or play up front, but the quality if severely lacking and it is hard to see a 20 goal a season man here. Conor Chaplin, on loan from Ipswich is a fantastic player and probably the best in our whole squad, but he can't be relied upon to do everything himself...but I will be utilizing him to make use of his key strengths and work other players off him.

Colby Bishop is the main striker at the moment, but needs some competition as I am not sure he is good enough to put the ball in the back of the net often enough for us. He only managed 11 goals in this division last year.

Unfortunately, I don't have much in the way of transfer budget to make any major improvements to my squad right away. I'll either need to shift some players to raise funds or look to the loan market.

 

[FM_TNSSO]

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July 2025​

After settling in to my role and meeting my squad, it was time to meet with the board and go over the objectives that were discussed at my interview. There is no doubt that the initial expectation is to establish ourselves as a Championship side and not get drawn into any relegation battles, whilst working within the wage budget to ensure the financial stability of the club.

The club have loftier ambitions than just remaining in the second tier though and the 5 year goal is to get Portsmouth back challenging at the top of this division and pushing for the playoffs to eventually get ourselves back in the Prem.

Player Sold; Then I got down to work and addressed the first issue of having too many keepers in the squad right away. Jordan Archer is the first player to leave the club under my watch, as the 32 year old keeper moves to St Johnstone in a deal worth £130k.

I then managed to add a little bit more into the transfer budget by adjusting the bonuses for the year. It's not realistic to think we will go far in any of the cup competitions so I'm not too worried about incentivising the players for these. I therefore dropped the bonus level and added £300k to the transfer kitty.

We played 5 friendlies in the month of July, with one to play still in August before the season kicks off (against Gent). The pre season was decent enough with some comfortable wins over some lower opposition before we got a hiding from Wolves. However, I'm not too concerned about that as I rotated and rested most of the first team for the first half and after I made 8 changes at half time, we were much better in the second half - probably the better side and drew it 0-0.