Christophe set for Southend switch

Christophe off to pastures new-ish...
We never saw him pull on the blue of Pompey, well not in a competitive game anyway, but Jean-Francois Christophe has done this plenty of times with the blue of Southend and is now on his way from the club with a permanent move to Southend set to be complete in January.

The Frenchman had been a hit during a 3-month loan with Southend, scoring some late goals for the club, including an equaliser as a shook FA cup exit against Telford looked on back along, and a contract will be signed until 2011 when the transfer window open in January.

Christophe signed after a successful pre-season trial a couple of summers back, but the fact that he has never made it anywhere near the 1st team is not exactly a surprise - we do have a habit of signing trialists with very few ever coming through, with him the latest in quite a long line - but we 'should' at least get a transfer fee for him, no matter how nominal it is for one of our players that I believe is out of contract in the summer?

I wish him the best of luck to him for the future anyway - maybe he can one day prove we were wrong to let him get away? Although, without being unfair I would not hold my breath...

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Diarra's off - The Mirror says, so this must be true!
Today's Mirror runs a headline 'Diarra to complete £18m Manchester City transfer in January' - I do not quite know why, but for some bizarre reason I expected some 'proof' or so-called 'evidence' to back up these claims. Ok, maybe not, the 'rehashed' and 'reused' previously made claims were probably what I had expected...

This is the 'factually enlightening' piece that was run: 'Lassana Diarra is set to give Portsmouth fans a Christmas farewell by making an early return from injury before completing an £18million January move to Manchester City.

'Diarra has pencilled in Pompey's trip to Bolton a week tomorrow after undergoing treatment on an ankle injury in France.'

Unbelievable - not one word of anything 'new', good to see the Mirror journalists earning their crust!

Maybe he will go, and if he does I will not be overly surprised, but with all the new found wealth that Citeh have it is not exactly hard to predict a move to them for anyone is it - you can rest assured that 'if' it does happen then credit will be taken for a story as 'exclusively revealed'...

PLAY UP POMPEY!

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