Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ellis Iandolo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Leyton Orient the goodbyes have quietly begun.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Rodrigo Bentancur and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad21 Feb 2028
Words at Leyton Orient training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Charlie Hughes is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Steven Morgan after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Brentford have kept their man, and Portsmouth go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
$5.5M was the most the club would pay and Crystal Palace were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Abu Kamara was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Portsmouth, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
Portsmouth have made the call to Burnley. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Portsmouth know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
In brief
The dugoutJohn Swift has become a man the manager trusts
$9.5M was the most the club would pay and Leeds United were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
The offer went to Crystal Palace this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Portsmouth, and it is not being withdrawn.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Add another name to the list: Queens Park Rangers have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Ibane Bowat. The answer from Portsmouth has not changed — yet.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Márk Kosznovszky was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
11 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Portsmouth, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Günay Güvenç is 35 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Portsmouth would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
25 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Portsmouth lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Successful dribbles: 28. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Josh Knight was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Portsmouth, and 7 appearances in 33 say he has earned the hearing.
43 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Portsmouth lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Portsmouth they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
77 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Portsmouth lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Portsmouth is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
A goalkeeper’s error has no defender behind it to tidy it away. He knew before the ball crossed the line, the crowd knew a second later, and there is nothing anybody can say tonight.
The dugout1 Mar 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑3 Oliver Ross left the room before anybody could ask which.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Portsmouth has been clear about where John Swift stands, which is more than many ever get.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of John Swift
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Oliver Ross on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
At 27 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Benjamin Arthur is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portsmouth this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Queens Park Rangers next, and one man in the Portsmouth dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Portsmouth, and both men came out saying it was fine.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Portsmouth have no good answer.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
“I did not go to Leicester City to sit and watch. I want to come back to Portsmouth and fight for my place.” 2 appearances in 7 matches say the rest.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
William Osula is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Madiodio Dia was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Franco Umeh has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Successful dribbles: 18. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portsmouth this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
In brief
The dugoutWilliam Osula asks for a word with the manager
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Nicolas Schmid
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Fábio Carvalho