The Pompey Chimes: 23rd-29th August 2009

Welcome to the Pompey Chimes - the definitive guide to the past week in the world of Pompey.

Club News

Pompey's league campaign hasn't got off to the best of starts, as we are hammered 4-1 at the Emirates Stadium against an in-form Arsenal side. Read the match report here. That said, a good performance in the Carling Cup saw Pompey ease past Hereford United by an identical scoreline. You can read that match report by clicking here.

Arsenal Stats: here.
Hart on Arsenal defeat: here.

The reserves won their opening fixture against Wolves 2-1, as a very young side took on a relatively experienced Wolves side. You can read the match report on the official site. Also, you can read about the Academy winning their first league game 2-0 against Barnsley (with highlights), and the Ladies mirroring their first team counterparts with an opening day League defeat at home to Reading, but winning in the League Cup vs Brighton.

So more news on the takeover but seemingly we are all still in the dark, so I'll do my best to give you a bit of an idea about what happened. First, Dr SAF announced on his website that he has here Portsmouth FC, and that AAA Ltd are the new owners. More information can be found here.

It looked like Storrie was the one who was going to end up purchasing our club, however he has missed out and showed his disappointment publicly.

Various media outlets are getting involved now as Dr SAF appears to be giving interviews left right and centre to everyone NOT connected with Portsmouth FC! Read his words in The Sun and Arabian Business.com.

Peter Storrie was linked with a move away from Fratton Park given his bitter disappointment at now purchasing the club, and as such PompeyFCUK has written a decent piece on why Storrie should stay. Read that here.

Squad News

Early reports this week suggested that Aruna Dindane and Steve Gohouri were linked with moves to the South Coast, and you can read about that here. Further, the former has apparently passed his medical, with more information on that here, with also a little bit more about Sol's move to Notts County.

Pompey bolstered their striking options with little-known (by me at least) Watford hitman Tommy Smith. We had the offer accepted, with the player agreeing terms and passing a medical and actually signing later in the week.

Friday saw an influx of new signings, four in all! The first to arrive was former Pompey midfielder Michael Brown who returned to the club from Wigan.

Later in the afternoon Aruna Dindane was confirmed as a loan signing for the rest of the season from Lens, shortly followed by the announcement that Kevin-Prince Boateng had signed a three-year contract with Pompey, signing from Spurs.

The days transfer dealings, coming in, where concluded with the announcement in the evening that Jamie O'Hara had signed on loan from Spurs until January with us having the option to extend until the end of the season.

One player who has left Pompey though is Sylvain Distin, who has moved to Everton following his unhappiness early this week.

In light of Distin leaving, we need a new club captain, and Rug explores the options here.

Vital Pompey News

Read last week's toast if you haven't already done so here.

Also, we have all been voting so check out the results on:
Man of the Match vs. Arsenal: here.
How many points we will have by Xmas: here.

Gino's Teaser

Last week's teaser was won by PompeyFcMad who correctly identified Micky Adams of Southampton being the Premiership's first red card and he was sent off for dissent.

This week's teaser:

Which is the smallest country to provide a Premiership player?

See you next week folks!!

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