EPL, Premiership, English Premier League

Following the departure of Harry Redknapp, Tony Adams, his assistant for the past two years has been appointed as the new manager for Pompey. “It’s fantastic. I’m very honoured, it’s a great opportunity and one I would be mad to turn down. I am going to take this opportunity and risk, because Harry’s done a fantastic job for this club and is a hard act to follow. But I think it is my time, I think I am ready. It’s the best job in the world. I’m scared to bits, of course, but another bit of me is really excited. I couldn’t sleep last night.”

42 year old Tony Adams formerly played as a center back for Arsenal from 1984-2002 and also played for the England National squad from 1985-2000. “I spoke to Arsene last night for advice and he said ‘welcome to hell’. I said ‘are you scared? Because I’m coming for you!”’.

Wenger commented about his appointment positively and suggested it was a great opportunity.
“It makes me very happy. I believe it is a good opportunity for him and we wish him of course well. He is at the age now where you have to start in this job. For the rest I believe he has a good squad and he has worked a lot now in this job and I think he is ready. Tony has now much more experience because he has been abroad and has been at Portsmouth as an assistant. I believe he has the qualities and that is why I am very positive about it. I believe in life when you go wrong you can always, with intelligence and character, turn things right and that is what he did. He came out and said he had a drinking problem when he was a player and he showed enough strength and character to change that. I believed in him because everybody deserves a chance when he wants really to change life. That basically didn’t come from me, it came from him. I believe that he has natural authority which is one important ingredient, the second one is of course to convince everybody about your philosophy and the way you see things. At that level you need a big resistance to stress and daily commitment. You want to give him the chance. What is most important is that I believe he has the qualities. He gets the opportunity and only time will tell how he would do and I would bet that he will do well. The most important thing you want to have is good players when you arrive somewhere - and I believe Portsmouth has good players and that’s where you can show your qualities.”

Adams also managed the Wycombe Wanderers during the 2003-2004 season. The Wanderers were relegated the soon after he took over (though they were in the relegation zone when he joined them). The next season in League Two he resigned after their form became worse. “At Wycombe my job was to save the club - they were losing £6,000 a week at the time but this is a different ball game. It was the right time to move on from there, I went to Feyenoord and that was a great learning curve. As it was in my playing days under Arsene Wenger, Bobby Robson, Terry Venables and all the great managers I’ve played under. This is the next step for me, so here I am.”

Financial struggles at Pompey have aroused speculations that players would leave during the January transfer window. However, Adams assured fans that he would be keeping his best players:
“We’ve got some great players here at Portsmouth and I’ve been kind of responsible, with Harry, for bringing them to the club. They’re here because they’re good players … but my job is to keep them here and to get them to play well.”

Executive chairman Peter Storrie barely addressed finances at Pompey saying, “I said all I’m going to say about finances the other day, it’s a boring, boring subject. The club is fine, we’re moving on, the owner [Alexandre Gaydamak] is here and he continues to put money into the club. If Tony wants to sell then we’ll sell and reinvest that money - and the fans are all aware of the situation. I know we said we’d take our time a little bit but we had a think about it, had a chat with Tony and we feel he’s done a tremendous job here and thoroughly deserves this opportunity to manage the club. He’s not only popular among the board and people working at the club, but as was shown on Sunday, it’s a popular decision for the supporters.”