Portsmouth's Richard Hughes on Summer Transfers and Championship Aspirations
Portsmouth’s sporting director Richard Hughes believes the club emerge from a turbulent summer window stronger, deeper and built to attack the Championship – even if not every gamble paid off.
The club brought in 12 new signings after loosening the purse strings, with Hughes previously admitting this year’s budget outstripped recent seasons. The ambition showed in the headline deals: up-front fees for striker Marko Milovanovic and midfielder Rocco Shein alone surpassed Portsmouth’s entire transfer spend last summer.
That kind of outlay brings scrutiny. It also brought complications.
"I'm pleased with a lot of the work that's taken place," Hughes told BBC Radio Solent, before quickly acknowledging the grind behind the scenes. He described it as “one of the more challenging windows” of his time at the club, a difficulty he said was shared across the market as teams wrestled with recruitment at Championship level.
Targets shifted. Prices rose. Deals dragged. Portsmouth still came out with a squad Hughes believes can grow quickly once the new faces bed in.
"I'm really looking forward to seeing where the group plays out to be once they get a bit more comfortable with each other and have played a few more games," he said. "Overall I'm really pleased with the work that we've done and the strength in depth that we've added to the group, I'm optimistic as to where we can go with this squad."
That optimism sits alongside one obvious sore point.
While Portsmouth spent heavily to reshape John Mousinho’s options, they struggled to bring money back in for players on the fringes. Outgoings did not match the ambition of the incomings.
Andre Dozzell left Fratton Park for nothing, joining MLS side DC United earlier in the summer. Luke Le Roux, signed only last year for £1m and once seen as a key midfield investment, also departed without a fee.
The South Africa midfielder started this season but slipped down Mousinho’s pecking order, ending up with just 14 league appearances to his name. By early September, the club announced they had reached a mutual agreement to terminate his contract, allowing him to move on. This week he secured a fresh start with Belgian top-flight club Cercle Brugge.
Hughes did not dodge responsibility.
"With Luke's situation everyone will be right to point criticism towards myself, John and the recruitment department," he admitted. "It's one we have to take and we have to wear that, it was something that didn't work on our part and it didn't work for Luke on the pitch."
Portsmouth had pushed to find a permanent transfer solution that would at least bring in a fee. That chance never arrived.
"We wanted to find a permanent solution for him to leave and that didn't present itself," Hughes said. "We'll take the learnings from this and make sure that it doesn't happen again."
A squad rebuilt, a budget stretched, and one expensive lesson marked in red. The question now is simple: can this new-look group justify the spend and turn Hughes’ optimism into a sustained Championship push?
