Spending Pennies In Hindsight - Part II

It’s hard to believe looking at the current nucleus of today’s squad made up of youngsters, triallists and players we’re desperately trying to offload from the wage bill that it wasn’t that many seasons ago we were bringing some real big names to Fratton Park who came with good pedigree and on paper should have been a real asset to the team. Yesterday we saw how John Utaka failed to live up to his transfer fee of £7,000,000 so today we look at another set of players who failed to produce during their time with the club. Redknapp as we know was labelled a wheeler dealer and so many players came into the club before exiting stage left. So who else failed to cut the mustard?

John Utaka’s transfer fee of £7 million gave me a lot of options when it came to suggesting where the money would have been more wisely spent so I’m going to have to combine the transfer fee’s of two players to help me get through the previous summer transfer window of 2006. Two players who literally couldn’t have come with a higher footballing pedigree and record if you’d tried.

Lauren (Arsenal to Portsmouth) £500,000

On paper this was a deal that couldn’t go wrong and matched the clubs ambition at the time to bring the best players to the club. No offence to 90s midfielder Chris Burns who had signed from Cheltenham over a decade earlier, but the signing of Lauren for me personally showed how the club had moved so far forward. Lauren had been an integral part of the Arsenal back like which had seen the club run out Double Winners in 2001-2002. He was part of the 2003-2004 side dubbed ‘The Invincibles’ having gone the entire campaign undefeated. He was a versatile player who could play in pretty much any role across the back four which he proved when Glen Johnson’s performances saw the ex-Chelsea player playing in his preferred role in the back four.

Arsene Wenger one of the most astute managers in the game worldwide let alone in England when it comes to transfers had paid £7.2 million and we’d managed to sign him for £6.7 million less than that? What could go wrong?

Fast forward to 2009 and Lauren’s Pompey career saw him make a grand total of just 30 appearances for the club in all competitions. I don’t know if it’s true or not but he was rumoured to be on £40,000 a week which would mean he managed to pocket a total of a staggering £4.16 million from his time with the club. Even if the figure is half that amount that’s not a bad amount to walk away with having only managed 25 appearances in all competitions.

Laurens Pompey career amounted to the following;

20 league starts in 5 as substitute

2 FA Cup starts plus 1 as substitute

1 Carling Cup and 1 further appearance in the FA Community Shield.

So if the rumoured salary is true each appearance and hold in mind six of those were as a substitute it would have cost the club £138,667 for each of them.  That’s not a bad days work if you can get it is it not?

As I mentioned the sum of £500,000 didn’t give me a lot to work with so I’ve coupled his transfer fee to another one of Redknapp’s summer signings, a player who came with one of the best goal scoring records of any striker in the history of the English Premier League, step forward Mr Andrew Cole.

Andy Cole (Manchester City to Portsmouth) £500,000

Signed on the transfer deadline day of 2006 in a deal that could have risen to £1 million depending on the amount of appearances the striker played (He didn’t get there so the figure is included at £500,000) Andy Cole had one of the most enviable strike rates in the English game. During his time with Newcastle United he scored 55 goals in 70 games for the Magpies giving him a strike rate of 1 goal in every 1.27 … yes 1.27 games. Having been snapped up unsurprisingly by Manchester United he found the net a further 93 times in 195 games which gives him a goal scoring ratio of 1 in 2.09 games and although not as prolific at his time during his spell at Newcastle, this time the team wasn’t built to play specifically around him and his strike partners were world class as well.

Despite a somewhat torrid time since he left United; Blackburn Rovers 27 goals in 83 games, Fulham 12 in 31 and Manchester City 9 in 22, this was the Andy Cole and he was joining Pompey. I for one was excited.

And what did we get for our half million quid? 3 goals in a total of 18 appearances having been sent out to Birmingham City on loan before being recalled and finally moved onto Sunderland where his career nose dived even more failing to score in seven appearances for the black cats.

A goal ratio of 1 in 6. Still the way I look at it, it still outshines that of Kanu and David Kitson and when the Premiership years are on we can lay claim to having had one of the greatest Premiership strikers of all time having pulled on the Royal Blue Pompey shirt.

So sadly for Pompey two gigantic flops costing the club £1million and if the figures are true probably a further £5 million in wages between the both of them; that just made me shudder.

So in the summer of 2006 trying to find players of quality of whom our money would have been better spent was quite hard. As I say I only had a million to work with combined so I’ve gone for these two choices who went to move on to Cardiff City and West Bromwich Albion instead of possibly coming to Pompey.

Kevin Phillips (Aston Villa to West Bromwich Albion) £700,000

Yes I know what you’re thinking he’s a  … but he’s also a natural born goal scorer and at the end of the day it’s goals that help win games and during his career Phillips has done that for whichever club he has played for and despite being 37 he is still continuing to do it to this very day and keep proving any doubters wrong. In all Phillips would go onto make a total of 71 appearances for the Baggies scoring 38 times in the process giving him a goal ratio of 1 in 1.86.

In March 2008 he was named Championship player of the year at the fourth annual Football League awards in London. Sponsored by Four Four Two they named him as the best player in the entire football league as well. The 2007 – 2008 season saw him named as the West Bromwich Albion club and fans Player of the Season and he was named in the PFA player of the season team for good measure. Phillips goals helped West Bromwich Albion to secure promotion to the English Premier League whilst Lauren and Cole helped plunge us ever closer into what would become a full financial meltdown.

Let’s state the obvious as well Phillips would have been £300,000 cheaper than Lauren and Cole to boot.

Choice two is another striker of which the chance or attempt to sign went begging who ended up having quite the season and Cardiff City where they nearly won promotion to the English Premier League before their form tailed off at the end of the season.

Michael Chopra (Newcastle to Cardiff City) £500,000

My second choice would have seen me save half a million for a rainy day which might have been bloody well handy given what eventually happened finance wise for us. Chopra was known as a raw talent but hadn’t quite made the grade during his time with Newcastle which is why he managed to sign for Cardiff City for the somewhat knockdown fee of £500,000. It turned out to be half a million pounds well spent as Chopra fired in 22 goals in 42 appearances for the Welsh side giving him a goal ratio of 1 in 1.91.

Chopra was voted Championship player of the month for both September and October and at the end of the season was named in the PFA Championship team of the year.

Remember though Harry we all make mistakes and we’re all human.

Spending Pennies in Hindsight - John Utaka

This series of blogs takes a look at the failed players who have failed to grace the Royal Blue shirts of Pompey in recent years and dips into that transfer window to see just who else we could have gotten for our money. Where else better to start than the miss firing  French man...

John Utaka

French striker Utaka was brought to Pompey in a deal rumoured to be in the region of £7 million from French top flight outfit Rennes where he had found the net 22 times in 63 games giving him a goal ratio of 1 in 2.86. In all Utaka made 90 appearances for Pompey between 2007 and his departure to Montpellier in 2011 finding the net just 10 times in total giving him a disastrous goal ratio of 1 in 9 at a cost of £700,000 per goal.

So in the summer of 2007 what else could Manager Harry Redknapp have got for the clubs money in the transfer market?

Gareth Bale (Southampton to Tottenham Hotspurs) £7 million

Despite a slow start to his Spurs career which saw him lose his place in the side to Benoît Assou-Ekotto, Bale has gone onto become one of the best players in the English Premier League and has performances in the Champions League have brought rumours of a potential move from Barcelona in a deal that could be worth as much as £32 million. The original fee was set to rise to £10 million depending on appearances and success but this was reduced to £7 million when Spurs paid Southampton a much needed early settlement fee of just £2 million. In total Bale has now played 113 appearances for the North London outfit and found the net on 21 occasions giving him a goal ratio of 1 in 5.38 games.

Ironically Bale would end up playing for Redknapp when he took charge of the North London club.

Scott Parker (Newcastle to West Ham) £7 million

Like Gareth Bale another signing that would have seen money better spent and also ended up playing under Redknapp is England international Scott Parker.

The tough tackling no nonsense midfielder was soon taken to the hearts of the Irons fans and was voted their player of the season two seasons on the trot.  In September 2010 Parker signed a new five deal which made him the highest paid player in the clubs history.

In February 2011 Parker was named Premier League player of the month and he also won a recall to the England national side. That season Parker was placed on the six strong shortlist for the PFA Player of the year award. Although he didn’t win that award he was named the Football Writers’ Association Footballer of the Year. In total Parker scored ten goals in 113 appearances for West Ham before his move to Tottenham.

Martin Petrov (Atletico Madrid to Manchester City) £4.7 million

The skilled Bulgarian soon found the hearts of the City fans with his trademark left foot which saw him find the net 9 times for the blue half of Manchester before being transferred to Bolton Wanderers having made a total of 59 appearances. Costing £2.3 million less than Utaka, Petrov’s nine goal tally came at a cost of £522,222 per goal and he averaged a goal in every 6.56 games.

And the bargain bucket…

Graham Alexander (Preston North End to Burnley) £250,000

Yes costing £6,750,000 less than John Utaka Graham Alexander helped his new Burnley side ultimately rise to win promotion to the English Premier League playing an integral part in his side’s success winning wide praise in the game from home fans and neutrals alike. Alexander became the oldest player to score in the English Premier League.

Alexander made 154 appearances in total for Burnley as either right back or defensive midfield cover but still managed to double Utaka’s goal tally before he was sold back to PNE in 2011 before retiring from the game for good at the end of last season.  Alexander’s goals came at a cost of just £12,500 per goal compared to Utaka’s £700,000, he scored double amount the French striker did, cost £6, 750,000 less and his goal ratio to rub salt into the wound was 1 in 7.7 games compared to 1 in 9.

The murky characters that have blighted the name of Portsmouth FC part II

Show me any over football club who’ve managed to attract too many shady characters to their doors with such seemingly such effortless ease. In Part I we saw the names of Venables and Ashby who both were banned from holding Directorships in any business for a total of seven years and the latter was even jailed. The families of the Deacons and the Gregory’s who both managed to take Pompey to the brink of bankruptcy and Milan Mandaric who despite delivering the good times back to the club, stands trial as I type accused of tax evasion with old boss Harry Redknapp. If they weren’t bad enough, the list of names continues and gets steadily worse. Only at Pompey!

Harry Redknapp

Harry’s time at Pompey brought us a multitude of memories, from FA Cup wins and promotion to the English Premier League to his departure to neighbours Southampton where to his credit he did manage to get them relegated before returning to manage us for a second time. Harry was even given the freedom of Portsmouth after his FA Cup win though I suspect he probably chooses not to come within five yards of stepping foot in the city unless he has lost all leave of his senses which with Harry is always a genuine possibility. Interestingly Mandaric also had been given the same freedom and the pair remain 2 of only 32 people to have been given the honour. Other more illustrious names include Field Marshall Montgomery and Sir Winston Churchill.

In the past week or so we’ve learnt that Harry writes like a two year old or so he claims, so the fact he managed to find out so much information on players and bring a total of 88 into the club during his time is quite a mean feet and shouldn’t be under estimated. Our ex owner Milan Mandaric stated how Harry could act like a child when he wanted to buy a player. All these it seems great characteristics for paying a manager £4.2 million a year. I know I nearly fell of my chair when I read that part too.

Redknapp originally came to Pompey as Director of Football before taking over as Manager and guiding the club to promotion winning The Championship in the process. During his time as Director of football he had managed to negotiate into his contract that he would be paid 10% of any transfer fees received for any players sold in profit, this figure then dropped to 5% when he became manager. Little wonder Harry has a reputation for being a wheeler dealer at the club’s he has managed in his time. As manager of West Ham he was paid a fee of £300,000 when the club sold defender Rio Ferdinand to Leeds United for a then record British transfer fee of £18 million. It was this payment which triggered the investigation by the HMRC into Harry’s business affairs and the accusations now levelled at him that both he and Mandaric allegedly evaded paying tax on the monies paid to him into the Monaco account he set up in the name of his dog. Perhaps he wasn’t sure how to spell Harry Redknapp. Was it one p at the end or two? I know lets use the dog’s name it’s shorter and easier to remember.

Like Mandaric, Harry will lean his fate next Tuesday when the jury decides the fate of both men. Whatever the jury decide Harry successfully pocketed money from the club and did so legitimately and with no moral qualms in taking money that could have been reinvested into the club. Mandaric saw no problem or issue with it either.  Money it seems was no object at the height of success with the club. Only when Harry went scurrying like a sewer rat to Tottenham Hotspurs did we start to really work out what a mess he’d help to cause. Paying players like ex England international Sol Campbell a reported £100,000 a week was always going to end in tears let’s be honest.

Alexandre Gaydamak

In January 2006 the man more affectionately known as Sacha walked into the club to become
co-owner with Milan Mandaric. In July 2006 he became the sole owner of the club and Mandaric took on a position of Non-Executive Chairman which he held until he left the club. Sacha is son to Arcadi Gaydamak a man who in 2000 had a warrant issued for his arrest by Paris Magistrates wanting him for questioning over an alleged arms-for-oil deal with Angola in the early 1990s. Premier League officials were quick to point out that Sacha’s takeover would be subject to him passing the Fit and Proper Persons Test. Well that’s a relief then. Like the word bankruptcy this won’t be the last time in the tale that those words will crop up in the story.

With the test passed and no problems arising from being the son of a wanted arms dealer everything was looking on the up for Pompey.

The 2006-2007 season saw the arrival of so many big names it was hard to believe that any of it was real. The following arrived on free transfers but with big contracts; Sol Campbell, Nwankwo Kanu, Sylvain Distin and Hermann Hreidarsson. In the mid 1980’s Paul Mariner was rumoured to be the best paid player in the country when he was at Pompey being paid £2,000 per week. Here we were twenty years later reportedly paying Campbell £100,000 per week, fifty times more! But the player acquisition hadn’t stopped there; those were just the free transfers;

Lauren £500,000

Andy Cole £500,000

Djimi Traore £1 million

David James £1.2 million

Niko Kranjcar £3.5 million

Sulley Muntari £7 million

Seven million pounds on a single player! Who couldn’t help but not dream that the club had won the lottery around this time? In total 14 new faces were brought in for combined fee’s of around £13.7 million. Money it seemed was no object, no fee to high and no wage to large. Pompey were spending big and really making waves in the footballing world.

The 2007 – 2008 season saw the spending continue with real aplomb;

Glen Johnson £4 million

Lassana Diarra £5.5 million

David Nugent £6 million

John Utaka £7 million

Jermaine Defoe £7.5 million

In total eight players were recruited on combined fee’s of £30 million.

Into 2008 – 2009 and we were still at it;

Hayden Mullins £2 million

Angelos Basinas £3.5 million

Nadir Belhadj £4.4 million

Younes Kaboul £5 million

Peter Crouch £10 million

Now I’ve followed the club since 1986 and my father has done since the 1950s and I am sure we are not alone in saying that the notion of Pompey ever spending ten million on one player would have been utterly ridiculous. The thing is sat here in early twenty twelve it’s still as barmy looking back at how much was better spent and the wages involved. This season was interesting for who left the club though. Sure seven players had come in for £24.9 million combined, but Muntari, Mendes, Diarra and Defoe were sold for combined fees of £47.2 million.

Just to show you how far the club had come in a decade, in the 1998-1999 season we had brought seven players in for a combined total of £630,000 and the highest fee paid was a quarter of a million for Steve Claridge. Ten years later the highest fee paid was 40 times that amount.  Diarra was sold for £16.5 million! Our entire playing squad isn’t worth that now. It was shear madness to think that it could all be sustained.

Everyone now knows it couldn’t be sustained. The problem is when it’s happening and your watching Sol Campbell walk up the new Wembley steps and holding the FA Cup aloft in triumph you’re not really sat giving any thought to I wonder who’s paying for all this.

In 2006 Pompey made a loss of £912, 397 for the year which wasn’t the worst set of results for a club like Pompey. However 2007 saw a loss of £23.4 million, in 2008 £16.9 million and in 2009 £14.47 million to bring a combined total of £55.7 million. For clubs like Chelsea and Manchester City bank rolled by the personal wealth of billionaires, figures like these wouldn’t be blinked at. When the money is being funded from bank loans and the numbers land on a bank managers desk you can imagine the stench being omitted from the orifices of the Managers at Barclays and Standard Chartered Bank. They wanted their money back unsurprisingly. The salary level was 109% of the income which was the same as at Manchester City.

The club once again was again in financial meltdown only this time we’d taken the bar to an even greater height. This wasn’t £25,000 that Pompey had to find. Sacha had managed to turn the scene of chaos into one from Ben Hur; the banks were baying for blood.

CEO Peter Storrie was charged with finding a new owner for the club and fast and the stories that follow just get worse and all the more unbelievable. Gaydamak stands allegedly accused of asset stripping the club for good measure. Remarkably Sacha is still owed money by the club.

Arcadi Gaydamak

When the club was once more put up for sale by Sacha, reports starting circulating in September 2008 that Arcadi Gaydamak was laying claim to being the real owner of Portsmouth. The Jerusalem-based Russian-Israeli businessman listed all his assets to Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronot, including Portsmouth which he valued at £300million. He made the claims to counter any accusation that financial difficulties were threatening his £1 billion personal fortune.

In March 2010 CEO Peter Storrie gave an interview with Daily Telegraph journalist Henry Winter suggesting Sacha had run into problems because as he put it “Everything got frozen in Israel.”

Much has already been written about Arcadi Gaydamak over the years and as I previously mentioned at that time he had a warrant out for his arrest. One thing I can suggest is that even the English Premier League’s Fit or Proper person’s test would have seen that Arcadi Gaydamak wouldn’t have been deemed fit and proper to run a football club. But then again Thaksin Shinawatra was allowed to gain control of Manchester City so perhaps I could be wrong. Surely lessons would be learnt and the same mistakes couldn’t be made again? Surely one of the fundamental basics for passing a test to own a football club would be to prove you have the financial capability to do so.

The murky characters that have blighted the name of Portsmouth FC part 1

There are many points in time that this story could start to be told of the men who have all played their part in the much documented off the field troubles of Portsmouth FC. Whilst most clubs go through the occasional problems, Pompey has long been a magnet for attracting people to the club who have attempted to hammer another nail into our coffin. Since November 1976 the club has been beset by off the field financial difficulties. We’ve been drinking in the last chance saloon for so many years it’s a wonder quite how we have managed to survive for as long as we have done and still live and breathe to fight another day. Sure as fans we’ve toasted success since 1976, it hasn’t all been doom and gloom; twice we’ve managed promotion back to the top flight and even won the FA Cup but one problem keeps blighting our club and that’s financial mismanagement. There can’t be a club who’s managed to attract more shady characters than our own and in truth as you look back at the course of history it reads more like a script from a Guy Ritchie movie than it does a tale of men who have been associated with our football club. So where better to start than with a man who has been dubbed a bigger East End crook than the Kray Twins could have ever have wished to have been.

Terry Venables

In February 1997, the ex Barcelona and England manager Terry Venables purchased a 51% controlling interest in Pompey for the knock down fee of just £1. Once again in financial turmoil the club’s fans hoped that the arrival of Venables would bring in some much needed investment into the club. In the summer previous ‘El Tel’ had taken his England team to the semi-finals of Euro ’96 before being cruelly knocked out by Germany on penalties. These were meant to be exciting times ahead.

Venables used his position as Manager  of the Australian nation side to bring in a host of players to the club; John Aloisi (£300,000), Craig Foster (£210,000), Robert Enes (£175,000) and Hamilton Thorp (£75,000) all joined the squad in the summer of 1997. Enes and Thorp didn’t even make it into double appearances for the club. Foster showed brief glimpses of his potential most notably in the 2-2 draw against Premier League opponents Aston Villa in an FA Cup tie. Only Aloisi made any real impact during his time with the club before being sold to Coventry for a fee of £650,000. Worse still was the claim that manager Alan Ball had agreed a fee of £1.5 million for the player with Gordon Strachan. No monies were recuperated for the original £460,000 outlay on the other three players.

Venables arrival had brought hope that investment would be brought to the club, what occurred in his eleven months was another total disaster. Through his company Vencorp he received a bonus of £300,000 in the summer of 1997. When he left the club, Pompey were sat bottom of Division One with their financial situation even worse than when he took over the club and Pompey were left staring bankruptcy in the face, yet he still walked away with another £250,000 in his pocket from the sale of the club after Martin Gregory retook control  with a 96% shareholding. Pompey at that stage were believed to be losing around £150,000 per month.

Despite Pompey managing to offload strikers Lee Bradbury and Deon Burton which brought in a combined fee of £4 million, with Venables gone some £549,999 better off; Pompey were once again staring into the financial abyss with debts of £5 million.

In January 1998 Venables was banned from holding company directorships for a period of seven years by the High Courts. Venables pleaded guilty to the alleged mismanagement of four companies; Scribes West Ltd, Edenote Plc, Tottenham Hotspur Plc and Tottenham Hotspur Football and Athletic Company Ltd.

Eddie Ashby

Whilst much is known about Venables time at Pompey, less is documented about the role of his once former financial advisor Eddie Ashby whose involvement with Pompey sparked the FA’s investigation into the club at the time. Ashby had been banned from holding company directorships already for a period of seven years. He was given no official job title with the club yet was believed to handling the day to day running of financial affairs on behalf of Venables. It was Ashby’s appointment that led to the resignation of Director Vic Jenner who said "There are certain individuals in the club taking responsibilities which they should not be given. I was used to certain standards and they weren't being met."

Ashby was employed by Venables at Tottenham, Kensington drinking club Scribes West and several of Venables' other companies, even though, as an undischarged bankrupt, he should not have held management positions. Ashby was subsequently jailed for violating bankruptcy laws.

Martin Gregory

With Venables paid off Martin Gregory the son of former owner Jim, was back in charge of the ailing club with a 96% shareholding. In May 1995 Gregory had used the club to prop up his own families failing business Blue Star Garages. Gregory had mortgaged a 97% shareholding in the club to Barclays Bank and subsequently charged the club 3% above the bank rate of loans made to the club.

With mounting unpaid bills the club was issued with a winding up petition by Try Build who had constructed the new 4,500 seater stand which replaced the old Fratton End. Completion of the stand had been made in October of 1997. The outstanding payment was finally settled in January 1999 when the £430,000 they were owed was finally paid.

In December 1998 the club was officially placed into administration and with no new owners on the horizon it looked like the club’s 100 year would be its last. Martin Gregory resigned his position as Chairman though the club was still owned by Blue Star Garages.  

Milan Mandaric

In the summer of 1999 with the club asking to borrow some nails to put up the shut signs, Serbian business man Milan Mandaric became Pompey’s new owner and took the club out of administration. Whilst claims are made that Mandaric was introduced by ex-player Preki to the club, he had actually attempted to buy Pompey sometime before but had failed. The approach had been made by David Deacon a former Director of the club and son of former owner John Deacon. Neither man it’s fair to say had been the most popular of characters during their time with the club. In the late 1970s it was under the ownership of John Deacon that Pompey had nearly gone under for the first time. In November 1976 Pompey were struggling to meet debts of £25,000 and were in serious danger of going into bankruptcy. A story that is much repeated from 1976 to the current day. How ironic that it should be David Deacon who brought Mandaric back to the table to buy the club. The news of the Serbs arrival and Deacon’s involvement in the deal was heralded with much derision from Portsmouth United; a fans group who had attempted to buy the club with no success. Despite their protests the deal went through and the rest is history as they say.

Under Mandaric, Pompey rose from the depths of despair to the English Premier League and became FA Cup winners for a second time when they beat Cardiff in a 1-0 win in the May of 1998.

Mandaric is at the time of writing in court facing charges of tax evasion alongside ex Pompey boss Harry Redknapp. A decision on the case is expected to be announced next Tuesday lunchtime.

Part two will look at some of the names that make those already mentioned seem tame in comparison. You really couldn’t have made any of this up.