Day by day at Fratton things seem to be getting progressively weirder. There was a time when we'd bought Skopelitis for £1m on a three year deal, where Kamara was our record signing and Laurent Robert had been signed on the cheap - but permanentely. But suddenly, and completely unexpectedly, the truth is starting to come out.
- Skopelitis himself revealed he was only here on loan and it was up to the club to take up the option of keeping him; it seems likely that he will be here next season
- Laurent Robert, of course, was a whole saga of which even now I'm not sure what the resolution is (other than the fact he is our player for three years unless we get relegated)
- Kamara could go back to Modena within a couple of weeks if Perrin doesn't want to pay £1.5m to retain his services
The problem I have is not with the deals themselves. Signing players on loan to give them the "once over" before deciding whether or not they're up to scratch sounds like a perfectly good idea to me; that way you're not splashing out cash needlessly and it reduces the level of risk involved. Especially in the case of Robert, for example, where he has been known to cause trouble at Newcastle and not always be on his game - he knows here that if he doesn't do well we'll just send him back or he could be on the football scrapheap, another free agent amongst hundreds.
So if those sort of deals are good business sense, why is it the club tries to cover them up?
As someone who is generally optimistic about the club, I don't buy into the theory by some that Milan and Peter Storrie are both serial liars who will say anything to string the fans along and get more money in the coffers with season tickets, merchandise and what have you. Whilst I'm not naive enough to deny that those sort of factors do come into play - Milan is a businessman, after all - I don't think it's quite that sinister. Having said that, I couldn't tell you why on earth they do keep it secret since in the end it all comes out in the wash.
Even when Judas raised questions about Kamara and revealed he was "only on loan", it was hastily denied by Storrie as Harry being confused between Kamara and Mezague. Now admittedly he isn't strictly "on loan" since we're the ones who decide whether or not to keep him, but that was a chance to clear the whole deal up. Instead the deception just rumbled on needlessly.
At the end of the day I don't expect to be told the complete and utter truth on every single one of our transfer deals. After all it's up to the club what they do and don't tell us, and if you go around blabbing about how much money you've spent then any other club you are in negotiations with may adjust their asking price accordingly. But if the club do tell us something and it just turns out to be lies or bending the truth, why bother in the first place? Think back to the Fulham match where Kamara was paraded around the field as our £2m record signing - how could those in charge willingly let that go ahead knowing full well within a year we might just pack him off home?
It's a funny old game and it just makes you wonder who else we have on a similar transfer agreement where we can send them back. Fuller, hopefully.