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Kranjcar reveals his future ambition

Niko Kranjcar has told The News that although he is very happy with Pompey his future does most probably lie away from Pompey in the longer term: 'you want to be at the biggest stage.

'You take it a step at a time in your career but your final goal is as high as possible. You do everything to achieve and then you look to see if you are happy with your career.

'I'm very happy with my form at the moment and I'm happy at Portsmouth. But at the end of the day every player dreams of playing for a big, big club with even bigger traditions.

'Every player wants to play in the Champions League and wants to win trophies.

'At the moment Portsmouth are going that way. Things don't happen overnight, but moving on is something to think about in the future'.

Kranjcar has not said anything that is new to me, or any of you I am sure, and knowing the way the media work some these are comments that have been rehashed, reused or phrased to suit them - as is often the case.

Either way, as much as this is something that I accept, and ambition is something that everyone should have I do wish that the players would just solely concentrate on the job in hand at this point in time - that being achieving the European qualification they all say they want - and let whatever will be in the future, remain just that - the future...

Yep, we know the score and how things 'will probably go' and although it might sound harsh do they need to keep reminding us of such things?

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Writer: pompeyrug

Date:Thursday February 14 2008

Time: 12:00PM

Your Comments

Would players be satisfied if Pompey qualified for Champions League football or would they then still want to go to a "bigger" club

UKTony

Sadly there are always bigger clubs. £15-20m & we would sell Nico.

storagematt

I hope Niko stays with us for the long future to come. If he leaves it should be for top money but you never know with us...

imazav

Don't you guys get tired of all this "I'm very happy..... but I'd go to a bigger club if they came knocking" rubbish. It's pretty insulting to one's intelligence. HR summed it up well when he said that one week a player is kissing the club's badge the next week he's gone. They remind me of the politicians who say they are perfectly happy following the party leaders resignation .. ' and have no intention of standing... unless of course, my party needs me..'

ChrisW

How do you define ambition & loyalty? 1 contradicts the other. Whilst they are here & thankfully they are, they will give there all. We all benefit. Players move up & on. If we kept all our 'sold'players we wouldn't have Nico & Diarra. Ambition & loyalty applies to us all, fans, clubs & players.

storagematt

Is there still any satisfaction is making a small club big(ger) or must you always move? I think Niko will stay for some time yet.

eastneydave

We have to accept this is part of the game, and Storagematt is right, there will always be bigger clubs - even if you're Man Utd you can lose players to Real Madrid etc etc. I think that players have the same kind of 'loyalty' to their clubs that we do to our employers, its the same thing to them. Niko is a promising young player and of course he has ambition. I hope he stays a while yet though - I think he probably will.

tracyc

StorageMatt: Sure but that's not the only issue - the issue is that they state the obvious as though it had never occurred to us or the club that they would move on for a better offer. And in Kranky's case not so long ago he was happy for life at PFC [a badge kisser], now he's lost some weight and under HR's guidance is playing well. Now in his mind he’s a contender for a move to a bigger club and on the back of that he feels the need to cynically advertise his availability... as though the 500 or so agents that track the EPL are not constantly watching games just like you and I. Even if we accept that we will lose our best players to bigger clubs, they should at least during the season button it so that we can all concentrate on team results rather than individual advancement. I much prefer Benjani’s upfront approach – “I didn’t want to go, I pinched myself in disbelief, I missed flights thinking I’d wake up from a bad dream, but when I saw the money on offer I signed within 5 minutes”. I think it was Wenger or Sir Alex who said the more vocal a player was about wanting to move whilst playing for his current club the more sceptical we become about signing him... and if we do sign him his lack of loyalty which no doubt will one day affect us, will be reflected both in how much we are prepared to pay for him and how much we pay him .. [btw, Kranky was interviewed in this month’s 4-4-2, he comes across as a very political animal]

ChrisW

I agree with storagematt, we need to remember this is a business and within any business people move on.... if we can get some decent money for him and bring new players in that will help develop the club then it can only be a good thing (this is my head speaking) Heart wise... I hope he stays and Sacha makes billions from his millions and then money is no longer an issue!

Sachas_Brother

as said, i can appreciate and understand the 'ambition' that players have, the fact that they 'constantly' feel the need to remind us of this winds me up - it could 'amost' be viewed as a 'come and get me plea' which i would hope this isnt from kranjcar...

pompeyrug

Money and players contracts did away with "Jimmy Dickenson" type loyality forever.

007

007, Benjani is of course the exception that proves the rule - but that aside, in my view TV drove the game towards commercialism, and with that players started to be offered what the market would stand. I have no doubt that players from previous decades, assuming they could even compete in today's environment would act no differently to the current incumbents.

ChrisW

i know im alot younger, and i do respect what you say but sorry 007 i dont think that players even back in jimmy dick's era would behave much differently to those nowadays if the money was in the game then that is now...

pompeyrug

i think niko kranjcar will leave us when his contract is up but we will be in europe by then so as a big player goes out a even bigger player comes in. GUITTEREZ ???

stfc ballboy

Rug, I think we are agreeing. I am saying that todays commercialism would not support old fashioned loyality.

007

not a bd thing to see our players have ambition is it? they want to win trophies, and play in the champions league. only one way they can do that, and thats by playing well, week in, week out, and i would be very surprised if a player came out NOT saying he wanted to play for a big club. Perhaps one day though, we will be that "big club" everytone wants to join...

pompeycarpet

*note* at the moment, he is not good enough to play for a bigger club. well, unles you include olimpiacos/panethonikos/other random teams that play in the champions league despite being worse than pompey... but if he wants to play for barca, man u, arsenal, chelsea, he has a lot of work to do.

pompeycarpet

All fair comments and I guess that I should get used to players saying (allegedly or otherwise) "hey big club, come and get me". If we can take players for a modest fee, mould them in to part of a successful unit, thus realising their immediate ambitions and allowing them to progress, and sell them on for a healthy profit, we can invest that back in to players for modest fees etc. I think it gets to me that the players who are "saying" they want to move on have only been here for short periods of time.

UKTony

interesting points guys - I don't see any of our players as CURRENTLY being good enough to play for any of Europe's top 6 or 7 teams, with the very obvious exception of Jamo - as for Diarra and the rest, there is lots of promise but let's see what they can do between now and the end of the season as one swallow doesn't make a porno movie, or was that summer?

ChrisW

Good point Chris, we are bigging up some players who have done nothing yet, and they will not move to bigger clubs until they go onto a bigger stage and show that they are as good as we think they are.

Owenspompey

This is a business, of course it is. But it's not just any business. The thing that always bothers me with these incidents - which I agree, do happen all too often - is that once again this is the kind of behaviour which only spoiled footballers can get away with. If I were working in Burger King and constantly making some kind ofpublic statements ( well they wouldn't be in a newspaper if I was Joe T. Burgerflipper would they? ) about the fact that I was very happy working at Burger King, but obviously my true ambition was to work in a "big" chain like McDonalds, I'd get my P45 and a boot up the behind on my way out the door. Yes, of course it's natural to have ambitions, but it would be nice if a few more players had the class to keep their ambitions relatively private. As it is, these kind of "come and get me" pleas, which is how I see these sort of comments too, are remarkably disrespectful to the fans, who either through gate money or Sky subscriptions are paying their wages. These comments are very much aimed at the general behaviour of players on the whole, not specifically at this incident, which might well be mostly newspaper speculation and recycled comments, as I think was mentioned earlier.

PhilTaglia

well put Phil.

ChrisW

Story is not worth a comment. I'll just say good morning to everyone intead.

frattonaussie

Morning

Pompeyscum

yep PhilTaglia i liked what you said, great stuff... out of interest frattonaussie why do you say the 'story is not worth a comment'...

pompeyrug

Because we get all these newspaper reports on most of the players who supposedly have said this or that, want to leave, are of interest to other clubs are rarely factual and are often edited to appear to say something the player never said. This is just another one and if it is stated correctly he is quite right it is what every player wants. It makes some light reading but as I said it is not worth a comment. So Rug...good morning. I hope you have had a good nights sleep and a nice breakfast. By the way I am compling that team for you but it is taking a little longer than expected as some periods in Pompeys history don't appear in too much detail on the net and also there is little to choose between some players from different eras so I am trying to be fair.

frattonaussie

have i not said what you said tho? i quote myself: 'Kranjcar has not said anything that is new to me, or any of you I am sure, and knowing the way the media work some these are comments that have been rehashed, reused or phrased to suit them - as is often the case'...

even so i doubt that there is not any truth in this, either way the point is 'why do players feel the need to go down this road anyway?' we know what they are thinking, why give the media 'anything' to work with at all... not being funny, rather than saying 'Story is not worth a comment. I'll just say good morning to everyone intead', would it not have been better to have said 'nothing at all' in that case?

pompeyrug

Yeah I agree Rugbut it was probably a bad news day so they ask a question to try and sensationlise something .. sure I'm certain (and in some respects I hope) Niko , Lassie and Muntari all move on to bigger clubs (hopefully in Europe though rather than the Prem) .. It's the way things are these days and we should stiffle ambition .... If asked I wanted a better job, paying more money .. I think I'd say yes .. even if I wasn't thinking of moving ...

Chix

Oh and the reason I said that 'hopefully' they will move on was that it would mean that they had/have been doing a good job for Pompey... I don't necessarily want them to leave....

Chix

i believe kranjcar will leave in maybe 1 or 2 years for a team like chelsea or arsenal, wenger has already hinted interest in Niko

NK19

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