As a Pompey fan I'm still struggling to come to terms with this "silence" business. It was only a year ago that Redknapp was on Sky Sports News every other day talking about this signing or that signing, targetting the Iraqi player of the year whilst apparently being in discussions with the top goalscorer in Uzbekistan. But these days are gone, what with Velimir "man without a voice" Zajec and now the ever-secretive Alain Perrin.
Of course I'd much rather it was this way because it means Alan Curbishley has to go out and find his own players instead of just stealing our targets. But it does make things a bit difficult for me - firstly in this context of having to write five articles a week, and secondly as a fan wondering whether or not anybody else is actually coming in before the start of the season, whether or not anybody else is actually coming in before the end of the window full stop or if we're just going to make do with what we've got.
In fact there's only two transfer stories that have slipped through recently. Pegguy Luyindula of Marseille is reported being lined up for a loan move; he's unpopular at his current club and although there has been talk about fighting for his place he'll be keen to get regular first team football wherever he can - it was only two years ago he was winning the French championship with Lyon.
Elsewhere the De Zeeuw story continues to rumble along, Wigan apparently set to reveal both the popular Dutch defender and Michael Brown as a double swoop. But predictably, apparently Harry Redknapp is now in the race to take him down the coast in his desperate attempt to build an entire ex-Portsmouth XI. And of course, I'm sure you don't need me to remind you (again) that this very site predicted De Zeeuw would be at St Mary's by the time we kicked off the new season. Not that that's a prediction to be proud of I suppose.
Sadly that's your lot. We can only speculate as to whether or not we're going to see some action before the start of the season, although Milan has hinted that there are three potential targets and we could bring in a couple before Spurs. And of course there's plenty of good omens - the likes of Paul Merson and Gianluca Festa were both signed late in August... er, and so was Ricardo Fuller. We can't have it all. Despite the lack of news and rumours I still have a sneaky suspicion we're going to get a couple of new faces, maybe not by Saturday but definitely by the time the window closes; especially when you consider we've still got one domestic loan to use and we might as well get someone in, even if it's just cover for our squad which is by no means the largest in the division.