Even so, it's hard to ignore the reappearance of an old face and over the years the reception handed out to former Pompey players has been varied. There tends to be three types;
1 - The Alexei Smertin. His name clapped when it was read out, and given a standing ovation when he was substituted for Chelsea. A pleasant love in.
2 - The Michael Brown. No-one really cares.
3 - The Lee Mills. Relentlessly taunted and mocked for being a big fat waste of money.
That's pretty much the long and short of it so I've found - good, bad and indifferent. I could throw a spanner into the works with such rare factors as "Steve Claridge" where 1 and 3 combine, but we don't need to worry about that. The bottom line is what can Amdy Faye expect?
He played for us nearly fifty times and it's clear he had the talent. But in a way that's what worked against him, because he so rarely used it. On his day we saw what he was capable of and one of his best games was when we beat Bolton 4-0 to go top of the table; skills, tackles, and a ridiculously pointless yet still vaguely exciting shot from the half way line. But - no doubt prompted by his agent Willie McKay, who is unsurprisingly currently involved in a French transfer scandal - his comments in the press about "stepping stone" and "Champions League team" did him no favours at all, especially coming at a time when his own for was very poor.
For myself, and no doubt others, we clinged to the thought that the reason he was below par at the end of last season was because his was on his way back from an injury. Anything resembling respect was lost when he turned down a move to Fulham claiming he wanted to stay for the fans, only for the truth to come out - he had failed his medical.
To his credit he did finally start to perform a bit better after Redknapp left but after months of strolling around the centre circle playing badly and all the while mouthing off about wanting to move - as well as discussing terms with Villa and Middlesbrough - I wouldn't be overly surprised if he finds himself getting a fair bit of stick tomorrow. It won't be "Lee Mills", if anything it'll probably be more "Shaun Derry" - start off strong but die down in the end. Still, what odds on the ultimate irony that having never scored for us, he finds the back of the net tomorrow?