Guy Whittingham has expressed his opinion on the Pompey debate, which has accompanied the Blues’ Championship troubles.
With Fratton Park at the bottom of the table and only one win in 12 league games, questions about the side’s Championship potential are being raised time and again. The latest issue began with Pompey’s home defeat to Sheffield Wednesday on Friday night, the club’s sixth in the division this season.
Now Blues great Whittingham has spoken out, and it is evident that he has serious questions about the number of players at Fratton Park who are currently capable of playing in the second tier of English football. The Blues entered Friday night’s game against the Owls with another limited roster owing to injury. While the former Blues striker sympathizes, he believes the squad lacks depth to handle the situation. Whittingham told BBC Radio Solent following the 2-1 loss to the Owls: ‘John Mousinho hasn’t been able to pick a team that’s probably anywhere near what he thinks is his best due to those injuries. Again, three were picked up in midweek at Cardiff, and he had to rearrange things today (Friday), so it’s a new combination.
‘But you’ve got to deal with those things at this level. There’s no forgiveness whatsoever, nobody’s going to be: “okay, we’ll not play so well against you today or we won’t run you into the ground today because you’ve got injuries”.
‘You just have to get on with it and you have to go into the squad. And that might be the area where, you know, you look at the squad and it isn’t good enough at this moment in time.’ Whittingham used Pompey’s midfield against Wednesday to underline his point, as skipper Marlon Pack was demoted to the bench.
He said: ‘If you look at that midfield three, you’ve got (Christian) Saydee who came from Bournemouth last year, who doesn’t start every game and is really a No9; you’ve got (Andre) Dozzell who wasn’t signed again by QPR; and you’ve got a player on loan from West Ham (Freddie Potts) for his first year in the Championship.
‘That’s our midfield and that might be one of the issues. We’re playing with players who haven’t got the experience.’
Pompey signed 15 new players over the summer in preparation for their Championship comeback, while saying farewell to 14 who helped them win the League One title last season.
Few, if any, of the new arrivals have proven to be an improvement over what was previously at Fratton Park. While Whttingham appreciates Pompey’s recruitment success in recent years, he thinks the transition to Championship competition is proving difficult for some on match days.
He went on to say, “We are where we are with the players, and I know that John Mousinho and Rich Hughes will have gotten the best players they could have gotten because that’s their track record, that’s what they’ve done before.”
‘But it is a A huge step forward for these players.
Leave a Reply