Greg Halford likely to stay at Pompey
Wednesday 22nd December 2010, 11:00AM GMT.
Greg Halford appears to have played his last game for Wolves with the £2million utility man likely to join Portsmouth permanently next month.
Boss Mick McCarthy revealed the club are prepared to sell the former Reading and Sunderland misfit, whose latest loan at Pompey expires on January 3.
But the manager has welcomed the 26-year-old back training with Wolves this week, as he is suspended for the Boxing Day clash with Millwall after accumulating five bookings.
McCarthy said: “Ultimately I think we’d like to think there was a deal to be done for him, but we will see.”
Halford’s nine Championship games for Portsmouth represent three quarters of the 12 league starts he has made for Wolves since signing for £2million in July 2009.
But his form at Pompey, where his three goals have helped Steve Cotterill’s side to five wins and a draw, is likely to see Wolves attempt to recoup most of their outlay.
McCarthy said: “They want him and if they take him, they’ll have to take him for the rest of the season and we’d have to accept being a player down. He’s doing well for them and I think they’d like to extend the loan.
“You might have thought I’d have brought him back with all our injuries, but I wouldn’t have played him at right-back because Ronald Zubar is fit and I wouldn’t have put him at right wing because Matt Jarvis is fit.
“I wouldn’t have brought him back to put him on the bench because that wouldn’t do either of us any favours.”
Halford’s likely exit presents chief executive Jez Moxey with some challenging negotiations to get his money back, while underlining the difficulties of recruiting as a Premier League club.
Moxey recently successfully got every penny back on £2.5million Jelle Van Damme.
But Halford would be another recruit from the summer of 2009 not to convince with £1.2million Andrew Surman, who joined Norwich for £500,000, and £1.8million Stefan Maierhofer, who is on a year’s loan at German club Duisburg.
These are, however, more than balanced by Kevin Doyle, Nenad Milijas and Ronald Zubar.
And McCarthy is yet to decide on the future of Marcus Bent, whose loan from Birmingham expires on January 3.
UK Sport
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Pompey can’t afford what we paid for him. Jez will have take a loss.
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Yet another waste of money – no ability and no desire!
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Who are we going to sign in January then… Hopefully our skillfull negotiators will be able to sell those that we do buy in the summer when they have achieved the same as: Halford, Maierhoffer, Van Damme, Surman, Mouyokolo, Collins, D Ward, Shackell, Hill, Elliot, Eastwood etc.
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We will lose a packet on Halford.What will Portsmouth pay with peanuts or monopoly money? We will also lose big money on Maierhofer.But will lessons ever be learn’t ,by and large you get what you pay for.We still need a quality right winger,Jarvis is miles better on the left and you cannot expect miracles from Kightly after more than a year out.
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Greg halford terrible bie for the wolves .When i went to watch him play he never seemed bothered ,maybe he didnt get on with MM .To many bad signings the last couple of years with the odd gem .Just hope we can keep hold of jarvis if he could master hes final ball he would be a top player for any club.Roll on wigan and hope we take 3 points then it will be 3 wins out of 4 and if we can maybe sort our away form out we have a chance of stopping up.What i find funny is that teams like fulham and brum who have 3 points more than us will defo not go down according to some fans where we are dead certs to go down,but we turned good this time last year hopefully we will this season .
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Solent, no he wont, they will take him on loan. Thats what it says above. MMs statement is telling other clubs he can go permanently if they buy him, otherwise he gos to Pompey on loan.
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Chris Hoggard, name me any manager who hasnt bought duffers. It goes with the territory. Before you say Fergie I will say Veron, Taibi, Bosnich, Djemba Djemba, Poborsky and I havent even started to think about it in any depth. Alternatively you can look at Jarvis bought for £800k now worth £4m, Foley £500k worth £3m, Ebanks Blake £1.5m worth at least £4m etc etc, not forgetting Kightly who you mention, bought for next to nowt and wanted by Fergie shortly after.
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I think we should bring him back and play him, and then just spend 90 minutes attempting to force throw-ins about halfway into the opposing half.
See, I’ve done it again, I’ve kept us up! PeteNuts for Director Of Football or whatnot!
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It was that endless wiping of the ball with a towel. Most of the 90 minutes were watching him whilst we all waited for the long throw in…..
Very tiresome.
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Jake, You are right they all buy duffers,it just is that with our penny pinching philosophy we seem to buy more duffers than most.Time and again I have praised the good signings on here.But I have also said many times we need a step change in player recruitment if we are serious in establishing our selves in the Premier.Any takers for a new North Bank next season and Championship football.My betting is phase one will get the go ahead and without some decent signings this Jan we all must face the reality of likely relegation.
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7) Very good point but Jarvis was bought for £500k and Foley was slightly more than that. At the end of the day since MM took over we have tried to sign young and hungry players and many are worth miles more than we paid. Jarvis is linked with the Liverpool clubs and is worth miles more than £4m. More like £8-£10k. Ward for all his knockers is still worth a lot more than £100k. I would suggest that Elokobi is worth more than the £500k and then we have players like Edwards, Henry, Vokes, Zubar and Ebanks-Blake that would make a large profit if sold.
At the end of the day, Van Damme has gone, Halford needs to and Guedioura needs a replacement and there could be others on their way like Jones, for example!
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Interesting to see on greg halfords twitter page talking about he has no chance playing while ‘that man is still in charge’ about ‘why wasnt he recalled to wolves’ that he ‘didnt do anything wrong and was training as well as any one else’ he ‘thinks theres too much pressure being put on the lads, behind the scences’ that he trained with the boys yesterday due to being stuck because of snow and he ‘hasnt missed the training at wolves 1 bit’ that mick said to him ‘u shud come to our games more often ur our lucky charm erm thanx gaffer’ haa hint of irony in that comment, hmmm now he is training/playing for wolves and knows exactly whats gone on, seems the players have lost faith in the manager, his page greg_halford, check it out… you’ll need to scroll down to find the wolves comments, btw how is he traveling 3 hours every day there and back for training :s madness!
STAY IN PORTSMOUTH GREG YOUR RUBBISH NO POINT YOU PLANNING FOR LIVING IN BRUM MUCH LONGER!
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7- I agree every manager makes bad signings but we cant afford to make any mistakes in january also i think jarvis is worth more the 10m+ seeing as milner went to man city for 24m i think.
We could use holford as part of a deal to bring in another player like
westwood – coventry
wheater – m’boro
commings – derby
hammill – barnsley
sinclair – swansea
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11 – I agree jones should go his heart aint in it anymore someone like johnson from man city would be a good replacement.
Wolves ay we
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Bad signing, Yes but Mick is still way ahead in his transfer dealings. You can Knock Mick for tactics etc but his signings have been the best since Graham Turner.
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11 Brummie Wolf
Are you suggesting we replace Guediora, he is twice the player of Jones and one of the few players we have that I would rate as Prem Class.It would be gross stupidity.
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Chris I’m sorry but are you one of these pathetic boo boys ready to jump on the anti-McCarthy wagon. Don’t Forget what quality signings he has made, Keogh signed for peanuts looks like he’s going to sell for a couple of million, Karl Henry if we ever did sell him he’d go for a couple of million signed for 100k, Kightly 25k, Jarvis signed cheap, look at him now knocking on the door of the England squad. I’m sorry but another winger, Hunt is yet to be fully match-fit give him time, Dave Edwards puts a shift in there, have patience mate look how many are out injured against blues 14 of the 25 man squad were out injured. We have had most of our players injured this season and still put in excellent performances, every pundit has said we are not getting the results our performances deserve.Yes every manager has their bad signings, but look at the good he has signed. I’m sorry but what your saying is a bit pathetic.
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no15 Grogphil, I agree Mick has the best record since Turner,but have a look at no3 above,it is a pretty long list.If we want to stay in the Premier we need to sign Premier quality players.
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Well done no 13 – everyone is crying out for Prem experience & left backs & you name a load of championship wingers – just what we need
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