Deadline? What deadline?

By Pompey’s standards last night’s transfer deadline day was a non-event.
No last-minute deals to get Harry Redknapp’s adrenaline pumping.

No Benjani-style hold-ups or paperwork dramas.

Instead, fans had to be content with the arrival of Algerian Nadir Belhadj on a season-long loan.

It wasn’t the Wright-Phillips arrival everyone had hoped for a few weeks ago but there is a reason to be relatively cheerful - no-one left.

Well, no-one except Jean-Francois Christophe and, let’s be honest, he doesn’t really count.

As usual there were a lot of rumours knocking about.

The People reckoned Lassana Diarra was all set to join Spurs, but the sports desk reckoned they’d got the wrong end of the stick.

Harry Redknapp insisted he wanted only to get rid of fringe players and Diarra is certainly not that.

More importantly, we knew Diarra’s agent’s dislike of Spurs director of football Damien Comoli would count against the move.

The other rumour was Pompey were involved in last-gasp talks with fresh-out-of jail Joey Barton.

You can read Harry’s empahatic respone to that in tomorrow’s News.

The heartening thing for fans is none of Fratton Park’s top stars have followed Sulley Muntari or Pedro Mendes out the door to balance the books.

With a trip to Portugal in the UEFA Cup on the horizon, that would have been a disaster.

So while Pompey’s ‘credit crunch’ has dampened expectation, there is still reason to be confident of another decent season.

- So it looks like the way forward this season is 3-5-2.
And why not after Pompey’s wing wonders destroyed Everton at the weekend.
Playing Chelsea and Manchester United first thing made Pompey look a worse side then we are.
They are the two top teams in Europe, don’t forget.
Crouch and Defoe got service and got involved at Goodison Park.
The result - Pompey turned on the style.
- Finally, yours truly is cycling 160 miles this weekend.
Not just for fun, mind you. I’m doing the Pedal for Primus challenge - with 40 other riders - cycling between all four of Linvoy’s professional clubs.
It’s in aid of Faith and Football and their work to get the game into the poorer areas of our community.
We set off Friday and return on Sunday to be greeted by a Community Fun Day at Fratton Park.
The Fun Day is free to enter, starts at 3pm and features face painting, a bouncy castle, penalty shoot-out as well as food and drink.
Get down there and join in the fun.

Harry comes out fighting

Harry Redknapp’s response to the mauling at Stamford Bridge?
To come out fighting.

Our back page today has him in typical Harry mode.

Provoked and agitated by the inept display at the billionaire’s playground that is Stamford Bridge, Redknapp went on the offensive to remind everyone of his ability.

Mega-wealthy Roman Abramovich probably thinks the credit crunch is a biscuit - it’s far to say money is not too tight to mention for Luiz Felipe Scolari.

For Harry, though, the purse-strings have
been tightened. His reaction was to pore scorn on the likes of Scolari who can hand-pick his signings.

Redknapp said: ‘Any mug can go and buy loads of players for £20m or £30m.
'My missus could go and buy Kaka.
'We could all buy the best players in the world if we had an open chequebook, but it's called managing – I have to manage this football club.
'I love looking around for loans – I enjoy that side of the job and I love that part of the game. That's managing.’

Wounded by criticism of his tactics, Harry reared up on one journalist - not from The News - who had the temerity to question the choice of 4-4-2 over 4-5-1.

Harry knows he is one the best in the lower ends of the transfer market and, while he desperately wanted the money to go for Shaun Wright-Phillips and Nicky Shorey, scrapping around for loans and frees suits him.

But as our columnist, Sky Sports Ian Darke says in tomorrow’s (Wednesday) News, Pompey’s cash ran out with the shopping half done.
Peter Crouch and Younes Kaboul have arrived, but the need to balance the books has altered recruitment, hence the loan signing of Jerome Thomas from the Championship.

The revolution will have to be evolution.
Sacha Gaydamak’s pockets are not as deep as we, or Harry, had hoped.