Avram Grant has urged his Portsmouth players to rally over the remainder of the season and ensure the final Premier League table shows it was the club's nine-point deduction that ultimately condemned them to relegation.
The Pompey manager had alarmed the Premier League by suggesting on Thursday that he might field weakened sides in protest in their last nine top-flight games with their position having effectively been rendered hopeless by the points sanction, applied after the club went into administration, and make next month's FA Cup semi-final their priority. Grant had said: "I said we would fight against everything as long as we had a chance, and now I do not know. We don't have a duty to the other clubs in the Premier League."
However, the Israeli summoned his squad together after today's training session and informed them that by ensuring the gap between them and safety is under nine points at the end of the campaign they can point to the Premier League deduction as the decisive reason for their demotion to the Championship. Grant, whose team are involved in games affecting both ends of the table, does not boast a squad of any great depth but will select his strongest available side for the remaining fixtures.
That will be a relief for the Premier League, who will nevertheless keep a close eye on the line-ups put out by Portsmouth – currently bottom and 17 points adrift of safety – over the last two months of the campaign. The governing body handed Wolverhampton Wanderers a suspended £25,000 fine last month for fielding a weakened team in their 3-0 defeat at Manchester United in December and, in issuing that punishment, warned other clubs that any future breach of a similar nature would be subject to "a disciplinary commission that would have available a full range of sanctions". Those would include heavy fines and, potentially, point deductions.
Portsmouth welcome Hull City, one place and 14 points above them, to Fratton Park with their players intent upon going out on a high. "We will try to win the game, for sure," said the midfielder Michael Brown. "We have to be positive and give it our best shot. The nine-point deduction has come in now and we had sort of been waiting for it, but while we are all disappointed we have to go on now and win as many games as we can. We have to move on.
"We are here to play for Portsmouth. The supporters are going to be paying their money, and we will be trying to beat Hull. They are a team around us and I'm sure we can take the three points off them. At this level, you are always trying to do your best every week. Football can come and bite you back quite quickly if you are not doing that, so everybody is always trying to play well for their futures."
