Jewell Confirms Portsmouth Deals Broke Down Over Personal Terms
Tuesday, 31st Jan 2012 22:41

Town boss Paul Jewell confirmed that the Blues’ attempt to sign two Portsmouth players — Joel Ward and Stephen Henderson — broke down after the duo failed to agree personal terms, as reported by TWTD earlier, the clubs having agreed a joint fee. The pair were part of a triple bid Town had been working on for almost a fortnight along with central defender Jason Pearce.

Jewell, who says nothing else is currently ongoing as the 11pm deadline approaches, admitted that the final day of the transfer window hadn’t gone to plan: “It’s been a bit of a nightmare really. I thought we had at least two deals done and they’ve all fallen through at about five o’clock, which is a right nightmare. We’ve spent a lot of time and a lot of energy on it but it’s not to be.”

Town can still sign the Pompey pair - who Jewell didn't name - on the basis of loans leading to permanent deals in a week’s time and the Blues boss isn’t ruling out further overtures to the Hampshire club: “You never say never. We would have liked the players but at the moment it’s fallen through. I’m not going to point the finger at anyone, they’ve the right to say no.

“We’ve spent a lot of time and a lot of energy and it hasn’t been got over the line, so we move on or things might be revisited.”

Town and other Championship sides had offers for Pearce turned down by Pompey earlier today.

Jewell is no fan of the transfer window, especially so when it ends on a day when there’s a fixture: “It’s so nonsensical, the transfer window. I said to Marcus this afternoon when we were talking about things breaking down, we want to move the club a certain way and I think throwing money after things you’re not 100% sure about can be dangerous.

“We might have to take a bit of flak for it and a little bit of stick but we want to try and do the right thing for the long-term of the club.

“That doesn’t mean we’re paying people peanuts but at times we’ve all been guilty of paying over the odds for too many players, and I think football is counting the cost of that.”

Town also missed out on Falkirk defender Murray Wallace, who has joined Huddersfield, which Jewell says was partly due to the Blues trying to renegotiate the £300,000 up-front fee: “We watched him on Sunday and we’d agreed a fee and I think he might be a good player, one for the future, but there’s a little bit more to that than meets the eye. We’re disappointed to be missing out on that in a way, but these things happen.

“We had a bit of a rethink on the deal, we tried to give them less money up front and more on appearances, but they didn’t want to do that, which you can understand. I think the lad was impressed with us, but there you go.”

The Town manager confirmed that he had also looked at shorter term signings to tide the Blues over to the summer window, including Stoke’s Danny Higginbotham: “I spoke to Danny yesterday but he doesn’t want to come on loan, he wants to move permanently. Things might change when the window closes and people haven’t got a club, I don’t know.

“Because you’re up against time and everything it’s ridiculous, especially when you’re trying to prepare for the game today.”

Higginbotham has subsequently joined Nottingham Forest on loan with earlier reports suggesting he didn't want to move too far away from his family home in the north.

Elsewhere, former Blues loanee Keith Andrews has joined West Brom on a free transfer from Blackburn.

Photo: Action Images

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rogie_dog added 07:24 - Feb 1 Morgan has gone to Forest. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see St Ledgers name cropping up again once he gets dropped at Leicester.
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Karlosfandangal added 08:13 - Feb 1

Well done Mr Clegg.

I have to say I had never heard of these 3 players till Ipswich went in for them, All this crap about they dont want to play for Ipswich cause they love Portsmouth, If Clegg had offered 30k a week they would be the first off the sinking ship, They are all about money as is all footballers, ie take Norris 18k a week here yet Portsmouth offered more and off he went.
The reason Portsmouth are in trouble is the amount they are paying the players, so the players that love this club so much are slowly bleeding the club dry.

Portsmouth have 2 points more than us so these players are not that great and if they were how come no one is offering big money for them.

Well done Mr Clegg for not caving in to the players huge wage demands , their demands will drop when they are not getting any money, they would jump at a 15k 3 year deal which is far more than Portsmouth will be able to pay

MDBLUE1 added 08:17 - Feb 1 Over 2 years now looking for a right back, a glaring need and yet again no real effort to get one. A 5 year old could probably have managed to sign a good one in that time
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ruffcider added 08:22 - Feb 1 What is clear is that the only way they might have played for you is if you paid them massive salaries, they certainly didnt want to for a normal wage. They woud rather play for their home/career team for free than be forced to play for Ipswich!!
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lawshallgirls added 08:35 - Feb 1 http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11095/7469609/Khumalo-back-with-Spurs ?!? Right age loan Supposed to be quite good Worth a shot!
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Karlosfandangal added 09:36 - Feb 1 Ruffcider Even in admin the players get paid so they will never play for their home club for free and because they want so much money is the reason the club is bust and have to sell
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jimmyjames added 10:10 - Feb 1 shame but lets all move on.
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pompeypops added 10:11 - Feb 1 Sorry lads but they did not want to leave ,It was the Administration guy trying to sell them not the chief executive ,It boils down to Admin was trying to sell players to put the money back in Chandari;s pocket ,These two players are Pompey through and through shame there is not more of that in football
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Karlosfandangal added 10:41 - Feb 1

pompeypops

Agree with you, however the thing I dont get is the fact that if the players dont want to leave, why did it take 2 weeks for that to surface. Someone must have spoken to the lads in the first place to see if they would be prepared to leave if the right offer came up.

If the club needs to find money for the tax man then should they not have been looking at players that were prepared to leave and get money for them, as now the window has closed and Portsmouth cant sell to raise the much needed cash.

jas0999 added 10:46 - Feb 1

Despite last nights result, this for me demonstrates why PJ and Clegg are not the right men for the job. Even now it's just 3 wins in 17. Not good enough. All teams get results from time to time - even the worst defences keep clean sheets. However, if people think we are all of a sudden a great side, because of ONE result then they are mistaken. We needed new players - a GK, 2 x CB, a RB as a minimum. Sonko and Smith did well last night - but have failed miserably in many other games. One result - however brilliant - does not make up for this.

It's clear that Clegg can not do deals. We spent all January looking at these Pompey players - wouldn't you have thought PJ would have had a Plan B? Also, surely we knew how much money these players wanted long before yesterday - we should not be held to ranson - but targetting players in our budget would have been a start. As for PJ, well he clearly struggles to attract players.

Despite teh 5-1 win - the failure to bring in players (and we know PJ wanted 5) is a real blow and one PJ and Clegg need to reflect on.

Having said that - I really hope that PJ has learnt his lesson and will not now rely on loans. Would much prefer to rely on our current players that bringing in other clubs players for 93 days only. terrible for the future building and stability of the club. If PJ goes down this route, after all he said in December - he should leave the club.

Jesney_Havoc added 10:56 - Feb 1 Well, thy're obviously not keen enough - we only want players that want to be here. Bollix to them then. Let's just hope we won't be cursing our lack of new defender when the season ends !
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PauloJulio added 11:14 - Feb 1 Haha Mr Norris your three year £25k a week contract doesn't look so good now does it!
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nitroblue1970 added 11:14 - Feb 1 Is there a possibility that the players not wanting to leave Pompey could mean that the club they love so much could go out of business as a result of them refusing to move?
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rosseden added 11:59 - Feb 1

i hope it does go bust now tbh Nitro, i never thought id say that about a club, and ive often thought positively of pompey, but the whole saga of Norris, then the way they keep doing things as a club, just says to me enoughs enough. They said itd take a big club or two to go totally bust before people really realise how bad football is... maybe theyre the first to go.....

cooper4england added 12:07 - Feb 1 And we the second!
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buryblue77 added 13:07 - Feb 1 Thinking about it, whilst it's been a frustrating window, only signing two players (one being a bargain midfielder and the other being a dodgy keeper) I'm not that bothered, I only want players who want to play for the club, just hope we don't make loan moves for them in the loan window.
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simonsays added 13:10 - Feb 1 In other words Clegg didn't do his job. CLEGG OUT!
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Strikes added 13:17 - Feb 1

It would appear the Pompey lads didn't want to come here and I would agree with those who say we should only be signing players who want to play for us.

Wait a few weeks and when Portsmouth FC are nothing but a minor footnote in the history of association football, the players involved will come to regret their decision when the Bradford & Bingley come to repossess their massive houses.

thechangingman added 13:18 - Feb 1 And so Jewell, whilst chatting to 'Marcus', says, "I think throwing money after things you're not 100% sure about can be dangerous." I think that ME has learnt that by throwing money at YOU Jewell!!!!
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Karlosfandangal added 13:29 - Feb 1

Would we want the pompey lads on loan now if they dont really want to play for us, if they came now it would be all about money and not football.

Norris would play for us if we paid him what he wanted, Portsmouth did so goes to prove it was not about football but money, will be intresting to see how quick they jump ship or I hope they are true to their word and stick with Portsmouth by taking a pay cut to help out the side they love so much back on its feet.

Wonder if they would waiver this months wage that they have not been paid

kerryblue added 13:32 - Feb 1 COULD CLEGG & PORNO PAUL PLEASE LEAVE THE BUILDING
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buryblue77 added 15:21 - Feb 1

@thechangingman, ME hasn't thrown money at PJ, far from it he spent around £3.25m in the summer on 3 players, some £70k last year on Drury and £50k on Stevenson apart from the other loans and frees Jewell has not spent a lot of money, in fact half of the Wickham fee-which in my mind should be available for re-investment if this club has Premiership ambitions.
Keane spent £7m in his first transfer window alone and Magilton spent in excess of £5m of ME's money.
I think that despite our record this season Jewell buys have been good, his loans and freebees have been the problem.