"The club has learned" - Portsmouth FC, Kenny Jackett regret highlighted | OneFootball

FLW's Portsmouth fan pundit has pinpointed the club's biggest regret

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

Portsmouth’s fall and rise back up the English pyramid has been an arduous adventure for supporters.

The 2008 FA Cup final victory over Cardiff City was a high point for the club, which was quickly met with rock bottom less than a decade later.

Many mistakes were made as relegations from the top flight all the way to League Two were suffered from 2010 to 2013.

But John Mousinho has guided Pompey back to the Championship, as the Hampshire outfit look to get back to the Premier League.

Supporters will be hoping that their days of being in the third and fourth tier are behind them for a while, having been out of the second division since 2012.

Portsmouth’s biggest regret

When asked what the club’s biggest regret would be, FLW’s Portsmouth fan pundit Miltos Ioannidis claimed that keeping Kenny Jackett on as manager for so long is an obvious choice.

He believes that Jackett’s tenure in charge held the club back, and that the current structure behind the scenes should ensure something like that doesn’t happen again.

“I think that not getting rid of Kenny Jackett earlier is up there on the list,” Ioannidis told Football League World.

“It’s definitely something that the owners and everyone around the football club felt like kept the club behind for so long.

“So I will have to say Kenny Jackett should have been sacked earlier, and it’s something the club has learned a lot from.

“I don’t think that, with the current structure, anything like this will happen again.”

Kenny Jackett’s Portsmouth tenure

Jackett was appointed as manager in the summer of 2017 following the club’s promotion to League One as League Two champions.

Paul Cook had guided them back to the third tier but departed for Wigan Athletic after clinching the fourth division title.

Jackett oversaw 211 games during his time at Fratton Park, winning 107 and losing 60 for an overall victory percentage of 50.7.

Portsmouth finished eighth, fourth and fifth in his three full seasons in charge, in which the third was curtailed due to Covid-19.

He was eventually dismissed in March 2021, replaced by Danny Cowley, before Mousinho took over the first team squad in January 2023.

Jackett couldn’t get Portsmouth over the line for promotion

Portsmouth were eager to gain promotion back to the Championship quickly once they were back in League One.

However, Jackett couldn’t get the team over the line, twice leading them to the play-offs.

That they were coming close but not quite made it more difficult to pull the trigger on replacing Jackett, but it did display a lack of ruthlessness.

Pompey eventually got everything right under Mousinho and now look to be back on track for their long-term ambitions, but Jackett’s tenure definitely set them back by a few years due to the number of their near-misses with promotion.