Portsmouth press on with transfer strategy – It hasn’t been Fratton Park success so far | OneFootball

Portsmouth are continuing to push for incomings from Australia with the arrival of Adrian Segecic. It hasn't worked yet.

Having maintained their second-tier status with an excellent run of form towards the back end of the campaign, Portsmouth are once again rebuilding their squad to sustain themselves in the Championship, but they are once again following an underwhelming transfer policy.

Pompey have brought in 21-year-old winger Adrian Segecic from Sydney, having reached an agreement over a compensation package for the Australia U23 international.

Segecic follows in the footsteps of Kusini Yengi, Hayden Matthews, Jacob Farrell and Thomas Waddingham as a player who has moved from the A-League to Fratton Park in the last few years.

However, it is a strategy that has yet to obviously work, with Portsmouth supporters forced to be patient – and it could provide concern as they keep doing the same thing, without just rewards yet.

The Aussies of Portsmouth

In the summer of 2023, Portsmouth brought in Kusini Yengi from Western Sydney Wanderers and the 6-ft-2 striker was a key part of their League One winning team from that season.

Despite some notable performances, though, Yengi did eventually finish the season with just nine goals, albeit in just 26 league appearances, and he then failed to score a single goal during the 2024/25 Championship season, eventually leaving the club this summer for Aberdeen on a free transfer.

Last summer, Pompey brought in left-back Farrell from the Central Coast Mariners but, again, he struggled to make any sort of impact in the second-tier with just a solitary appearance in the league.

That didn’t put the club off bringing in two more A-League talents in January, though, with the arrivals of Waddingham and Matthews from Brisbane Roar and Sydney respectively.

Waddingham scored on his debut in a 5-1 loss to West Bromwich Albion in January, but has only made a further four appearances, whilst Matthews almost immediately broke into the team with six successive appearances after joining before requiring ankle surgery and missing the rest of the campaign.

Mousinho’s success

It would perhaps be unfair to suggest there is a distrust of their A-League acquisitions from manager John Mousinho as he did rely on Yengi in League One and Matthews had made a relatively positive start to life down on the south coast before his injury.

However, his tenue at Portsmouth has largely been a positive one as a result of using players that have been signed domestically, with key men consisting of the likes of Marlon Pack, Colby Bishop, Callum Lang and Josh Murphy.

Portsmouth’s recruitment policy in the last 12 months hasn’t been limited to England and Australia, with the likes of Elias Sorensen, Abdoulaye Kamara, Nicolas Schmid and Alexander Milosevic all joining from the continent, too.

However, the persistence with bringing in a fifth player from the Australian A-League, amid a low success rate, would give Pompey supporters a bit of a reason to slightly worry.

It can now also not necessarily be argued it is a project that will definitely come good, with Yengi released at the end of his deal this summer, despite a reported £80,000 outlay on him just two years ago.

The strategy continues, though, more in hope than anything else.