And here comes the rough...

The takeover at CSI has seen a level of optimism grow, and as I and others have said this makes a change! You 'hope' that this optimism is not missed placed - of course you do not get carried away with this optimism and retain a slightly pessimistic view, although all in all being open minded is the best way to be.

Another thing that I have said I 'thought' we had to be prepared for was a few bumps in the road...

With the rough comes the smooth, was an approach we needed. Some rough, and 'if' the reports in The Mail are true, we could be in for some real turbulence and our recruitment plans hit for six sixes!

It is being said that Tal Ben Haim, the same man who recently said he wanted to play for Pompey, is going to be suing us over unpaid wages...

Snippets of the article follow from here on in: 'Portsmouth's hopes of a brighter future under new Russian owner Vladimir Antonov have been dealt a blow by a £1.4million claim in unpaid wages by Israel defender Tal Ben Haim.

'Ben Haim, backed by the PFA, has taken legal advice and will make his case against Portsmouth at a Football League hearing in July.'

The club have repeatedly said that he was not being paid since returning from West Ham, where he was on loan for the opening half of last season, and it would appear that this was in actual fact true - although it would 'seem' that this was not something we were legally entitled not to do!

'If' we have to wait for this to go to court, assuming it does, before making any signings - if we do have to wait? - then we are waiting until sometime in July to do this...

Matters 'could' be made worse by the added views in the article about a transfer embargo being placed on the club once more: 'if successful, a transfer embargo will remain in place at Fratton Park until he is paid, representing a huge blow for manager Steve Cotterill, who has only eight players under contract..'

Just what we needed eh!

Whatever the situation is here the need to ensure we get his £36,000 p/w wages off the wage bill have increased...

Hardly the start CSI would have wanted to their time at Fratton, or we would have wanted them to have, and this £1m plus bill could seriously hamper our desperately needed recruitment plans this summer.

A future with the club would be almost impossible for Ben Haim now so the 'likelihood' is that his contract, which as either 1 or 2-years remaining, will need to be paid up too?

Another fine mess PFC has found themselves in, it may have been inherited by pass regimes although the problem is one that CSI need to deal with and we need to hope that they can deal with this swiftly...

Above all else the thing that we really have to think about is, and not saying that this is not the case of course, what the papers say 'is' happening and what 'does' happen are not always the same are they!

PLAY UP POMPEY!

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