If the sheer complexity of Portsmouth's financial crisis can be epitomised by one man, it is Aruna Dindane. The on-loan striker, who scored one goal and helped set up another in the win over Burnley, was the subject of last-minute negotiations before this match with his parent club Lens, who would have been entitled to a £4m transfer fee had he started his 12th game for the Fratton Park club.
That would have been an expense Portsmouth could not afford, with monies owed elsewhere to an eclectic group of creditors, including agents, Revenue & Customs, other clubs and former owners, but Lens agreed to renegotiate their loan terms on Friday, at around the same time that Pompey finally paid their players their November wages.
Yet for 45 minutes on Saturday Avram Grant might have wondered whether the Ivorian was worth the bother. Dindane had already incurred the ire of the home fans by wasting one first-half chance to put Portsmouth ahead before missing a penalty and an easy chance to burythe rebound and he was booed off at half-time.
The reception he received in the dressing room was equally hostile. "At half-time there was a bit of moaning about the penalty; of course we weren't happy," said his team-mate, Hermann Hreidarsson. "But he just said: 'Hey, relax. You keep a clean sheet and I'll score.'"
Dindane was late on delivering his promise but in tandem with Nwankwo Kanu, the substitute, he teed up Hreidarsson for the opener and then assured the club's first win in two months with a far-post header. Whether Dindane can be relied upon to save Portsmouth from relegation – if indeed there is still a club to be saved – is another matter. In January he is likely to be at the African Cup of Nations for up to six weeks, as will a further four members of Grant's first-team squad.
The manager still claims to have "no idea" whether his employers will be able to find sufficient funds for a transfer embargo – levied by the Premier League for fees unpaid to other clubs – to be lifted by the time of the January transfer window and if he will have any money to strengthen his squad. "I have to think about January because if I wait until January it will be too late," he said. "But we need to wait and see how much money we can spend, which players we can buy."
A more pressing concern is to find investment from outside the club, with the Premier League withholding a large proportion of Portsmouth's TV money in order to pay some of the club's creditors. It seems unlikely that Peter Storrie, the club's chief executive who faces tax evasion charges which he denies, will have any part to play in sourcing those funds after he was allowed to leave for a two-week holiday in Australia on Saturday. Yet Hreidarsson, the club's PFA representative who, along with Linvoy Primus, David James and Michael Brown, helped negotiate the payment of the players' wages last week, believes a resolution can be found.
"The people who have come in are trying their hardest to sort it out. It's not like people are taking the piss here. If they hadn't come in, we definitely wouldn't have got paid," he said. "Of course you like to know what's happening. But if you put it into perspective, I don't feel sorry for us at all. We got paid eventually. We are Premier League footballers and it's not that hard. I'm sure the club will survive."
That Grant was able to call upon Kanu to change the game was a source of frustration for the Burnley manager Owen Coyle, whose side's away form is the worst in the division. "There is no doubt Kanu is on four or five times what my players earn. It's not for me to say [that it is unfair] but football clubs should be run within their means," he said.
