So Is Portsmouth Brett’s Next Pit Stop?

Manager Mick McCarthy told him he was free to leave and although striker Brett Pitman did not really want to drop out of the Championship, a return to a part of the country he knows so well, was seemingly too irresistible to decline.

Some supporters on Ipswich Town fan sites have suggested that he was by nature a lazy player and good riddance to him but I do not share that view entirely.

Admittedly he was not the sort of striker who weaved his way through defences or chased back crazily but he was more proactive in the penalty area then the rest of the current forward crop.

Unfortunately for Brett, making an impact when coming on from the bench worked against him in the end. He did have a bit of a short fuse too, when it came to berating teammates but quite often he had good reason to and a let’s face, a lot of our play last season was very mechanical in nature and therefore boringly predictable.

If the deal goes through and Portsmouth get him on a free,they will be doing very well out of it and Town might regret not even getting a fee for a player who can score goals.

People seem to forget just what a good finisher he is and at 29 he still has a bright future in the game.

It would not surprise me at all if another Championship club tried to buy him next January when the transfer window re-opens again because he could well be in double figures in the scoring charts before then, if of course he avoids injuries.

As for who replaces him, it looks as if Mick McCarthy is on the lookout for another workhorse and if the rumours are correct that we are close to signing Icelandic forward Jon Dadi Bodvarsson then he certainly fits the bill.

Bodvarsson is a hard working sort of striker, who goals to games ratio is poor – as of course is our other new work horse in the striking department Joe Garner. They will both tick all the right boxes for the gaffer in terms of honest endeavour but will they produce the goals?

I would have much prefered it if we had looked to the Netherlands – or even gambled on a prolific scorer from a league below and Scunthorpe`s Paddy Madden is a good example.

The Irish forward is a proven goalscorer at League One level, scoring in double figures on four separate occasions in that league and although technically he still has a lot to learn, he shows genuine composure in and around the penalty area and has the knack of being in the right place at the right time, which was one of the trademarks of former blue Jordan Rhodes.

Extraordinarily Madden has netted a total 45 goals in the past three seasons and the 27-year-old has proved his worth for Scunny so he really should be on the Town radar.


Frank Weston – Editor of Vital Ipswich