Neville Dalton is a journalist and a
In a season of seemingly never-ending surprises at
The dour, slightly gruff and certainly abrupt image he had cultivated while in charge of
Yet from the moment he marched menacingly towards referee Kevin Friend at half-time in Pompey's controversial home draw with Sunderland, bristling with fury at another perceived wrong by officialdom, he become a folk hero to the Fratton faithful.
There's nothing we Pompey underdogs, trying desperately to punch above our weight, like better than a man who takes on the Establishment - especially if that man is perceived as meek, mild and, well, a little bit grumpy.
Since that night, Grant has barely missed an opportunity to build on his new-found image, fighting Pompey's corner, and citing the fans as the most wronged of all the myriad victims in the saga of the club's crimes and punishments.
It is a stance to be admired, that will ensure him a place in the faithful's hearts long after he has left - or buy him more time than most if he makes a fearful cock-up of things (though he wouldn't be alone in that department, would he?).
Who knows? His mind games with the Premier League and anyone else who stands in the way of what he believes is a fair and proper outcome to Pompey's troubles might even win Pompey a few brownie points, a little benefit of the doubt if yet more sanctions are considered against the club.
But I do hope the comments attributed to him regarding Pompey's approach to their remaining Premier League fixtures are either inaccurate or merely part of another sly smokescreen to garner more sympathy for the club.
For while the words quoted do not amount to a direct threat, they come dangerously close to implying that if the Premier League is going to treat Pompey badly - not least over the nine-point deduction that effectively confirmed the club's relegation - he and the players will think seriously about whether to continue giving their all in those remaining league games.
The News' carefully - but rather too vaguely - worded story refers to them "considering whether the club fulfil their commitment to play out the rest of the season".
The actual words attributed to him include: "I said we will fight against relegation when we had chance and we did have a chance. When it has not happened you have hope.
"Now it's another situation. No-one has experience of that situation so we created the experience for the next one. We are the first but we will not be the last."
The BBC Sport website says Grant will consult his players "to discuss whether the Premier League remains a priority for the rest of the season".
Misjudgment
And it includes the intriguing quote: "The Premier League has a duty to the other teams. We have a duty to
"If we had given up before, people would not have thought that was good for the Premier League. We need to hear what the players think about what we need to do from now on."
He stops short of a direct threat to go easy in the remaining fixtures, but the implied consequence is there.
I believe that is a serious misjudgment on Grant's part.
Whichever way you look at it (except through those royal blue blinkers some of you still seem to be wearing), Portsmouth Football Club has behaved very badly in recent years. Some might say criminally.
It has signed players they could not afford, even won a trophy and significant prize money - not to mention a run in European competition - on the back of it.
It failed to do anything significant about it until it was nearly too late, and then after attracting owners of debatable provenance who were either misled about the extent of the problems or themselves misled the club about their wealth and backing, finally had to call in the administrators before the courts took even worse action.
Oh, and in the meantime, it has failed to honour its debts to other clubs - in many cases rival clubs competing in the same competitions - and also stacked up a worryingly high debt with HM Revenue & Customs.
That's the taxman to you and me. Except really it's you and me (if, apparently unlike Pompey, you pay tax).
Yes, I know other clubs stack up debts and I know we're likely to be neither the first nor last to get ourselves into a horrible financial muddle.
But the fact remains, that's not an excuse to protect us from punishment.
Points deductions are far from unprecedented. They happen every season - usually to more than one club (including one not too many miles from Fratton).
We know what to expect before the season starts, and more to the point, so do all the clubs.
OK, Pompey are the first to put the Premier League's rules to the test, but that's not a good thing, whichever way you look at it.
We shouldn't be whingeing about our punishment. We should be relieved we still have a club and hope those responsible are no longer anything to do with us when the manure hits the cooling implement.
Because it will.
Yes, Grant is right. Very often the wrong people get punished - the honest people at the club; the manager who came in way after the damage was done, and of course we fans.
But I'm not sure Chester's fans were any different as they looked on helplessly as their club was run into the ground, or Southampton's as its management team tried to exploit ownership loopholes to avoid the dreaded points deduction.
There has to be some sort of tangible punishment, some future deterrent.
Hindsight
Yes, the Premier League is not blameless, not least over its so-called toughening-up of the Fit and Proper Person ownership rules, of which the Al-Fahim takeover was the first real test (and Al-Faraj probably the second).
But the league did not force Pompey to sell to these people. And remember, while many fans carp at the league for not protecting Pompey from itself, with time running out, they also welcomed the two Arabs with open arms before discovering they weren't quite what they hoped they would be.
We fans are not really in a position to use hindsight to beat the likes of the Premier League and even Peter Storrie.
After all, it wasn't many months ago that Storrie's name was sung around the ground in much the way that Harry Redknapp's had been a couple of years earlier.
It's not always easy to judge when all hell is breaking loose around you.
And if you want to talk about fairness - as Avram Grant does regularly - there is a credible argument that we have done our fair share of cheating.
We've certainly failed to honour many of our debts (costing many honest people their jobs at Fratton Park and - who knows? - possibly among our many creditors, too).
Some argue we would not have won the FA Cup - or qualified for Europe - without the recruitment of players we could not afford. Indeed, they say, maybe Pompey would have been relegated a year or two earlier if we had played fair.
And now there is a suggestion - hopefully only that - that Pompey might not try in their remaining games, effectively handing opponents easy points and potentially affecting the outcome of the title race, European places and relegation battle.
That would be the ultimate sporting dishonesty and betrayal in my opinion, and I don't want any team that I support having any part of it.
In any case, half-hearted attempts on the field of play can be dangerous - they could lead to more injuries than full commitment might.
We should be taking our medicine, using this perceived injustice to galvanise the players into attempting to go out on a high, trying to win the FA Cup and bouncing back next season (finances and new owner permitting).
So maybe instead of asking the players how they feel about the nine-point deduction and the inevitable relegation, maybe Grant should be telling them that in the current climate, they are luckier than ever to have jobs - phenomenally well-paid ones at that - and that the least they can do in the circumstances is give their all for their manager, for the fans, for Portsmouth Football Club and for sporting fair play.
The Premier League has to be seen to be clean. If Pompey don't like it, they can leave it.
And they may not find "justice" any more savoury down in the Football League.