Portsmouth have appointed caretaker boss Paul Hart as manager until the end of the season with Brian Kidd staying on as his assistant, the club have confirmed on their website.

The club's owner, Sacha Gaydamak, was in attendance at tonight's game at Fratton Park after meeting the executive chairman, Peter Storrie, for talks during the day. Hart was appointed as caretaker manager on a match-by-match basis after Tony Adams was sacked following a nine-match winless run, which had dragged the FA Cup holders perilously close to the relegation zone, and promptly beat Manchester City 2–0 in his first game in charge.

That was followed by an encouraging point secured at the club's relegation rivals, Stoke City, alongside the former Blackburn manager and Manchester United assistant Kidd. Hart, 55, admitted on Monday that he had yet to speak with Gaydamak or Storrie over his long-term prospects of retaining the managerial role. "There have been no talks whatsoever, and I have not asked for any meetings or discussions," he said. "We are here to do a job and I am fully focused on that. I feel a little bit of focus may be lost if I start thinking about anything else.

"I just think that for the good of the club and the players, at some point, because there's a lot of planning to be done, that a decision has to be made. Not by me. I'm just concentrating on one game at a time. If I was offered the job, we'll have to sit down and have a chat, a long chat, and see where that gets to."

Portsmouth's first choice to replace Adams had been the former England coach Sven Goran Eriksson, though he has retained his position with Mexico despite some poor recent results, not least a 2–0 defeat to the United States in a World Cup qualifier last month. "I have a running contract with Mexico to take them to South Africa," said Eriksson today. "Do I like Portsmouth? I like coaching Mexico and I want to take them to the World Cup."