Andy Cullen is comfortable that Pompey's recruitment strategy is working - and says it's important to look at the long-term not just the short-term.

He has given a detailed interview to The News which comes in the light of criticism that Pompey did not do well in the summer window in preparing for life in the Championship.

Cullen admitted there were lessons to be learned but said many clubs had shown that a long-term strategy - one not to be abandoned mid-point - could be the basis for success.

He told The News: ‘I think you can learn from every window. ‘We have a very fixed strategy - we want to go out and create assets for the football club. It’s constantly evolving and it’s very difficult to get everything right the minute you come in.

'But I think the balance of what we were trying to achieve though (in the summer) was aligned to our strategy. I don’t want to deviate from that too much, because it’s then mixed messages going out in terms of sporting directors and coaches. We have really strong alignment between John (Mousinhi), Rich (Hughes), myself and the board.

‘There’s no easy quick fix to it, but I’m confident over the longer term the club will benefit from this strategy. That’s what you have to ultimately be assessed by. There’s too much lurching in football. John is now one of the longest-serving head coaches in the Championship up in the top quartile.

‘We’re committed to the longer term and that long-term strategy shows is epitomised by the contracts we gave John and Rich. We know what we want to build toward. I’ve been in the game for nearly 27 years and it’s something you see. The greatest opportunities and times of success are when you’re committed to something which is longer term.

‘Every promotion I have every experienced has been as a consequence of that longer term strategy.’

Cullen added: ‘We had a situation here where our recruitment focus had predominantly been looking at players above League One coming down. A number of those players were also coming to the end of their careers.

‘We also had a situation where we were spending twice as much as any other club on loan players in League One. That gave us a real problem in terms of creating long-term assets for the football club. It was great if you went up, but if you didn’t go up where did you then go to?

‘I think our team which went up was particularly strong and we were unlucky to lose players in key positions.

‘At centre-back Conor Shaughnessy has been a huge miss, arguably one of our best players of last season. We also lost our top scorer over the past two seasons, in terms of Colby (Bishop). Then we had a number of injuries and went into the season with a centre-back crisis.

‘We tried to balance signings out with a modicum of experience and went out and got established Championship players such as Josh Murphy, who was probably one of the most coveted out-of-contract players. Then there was Matt Ritchie and everyone has seen over the past couple of games what Matt can bring us as well.

‘Then some of the younger ones, who are going to come in through the season, establish themselves and be long-term assets for the football club. Then some has been able to make instant impacts, the likes Freddie Potts and Nico Schmid have come in and done that.

‘We obviously had Regan Poole coming back to fitness which has been brilliant for us and Andre Dozzell is a player with around 100 Championship appearances under his belt. He’s grown into the team over the past couple of games.

‘We were devastated about Ibane Bowat, because we felt he was a really good addition to the squad as well. That’s been a really difficult one for us, but I think it was aligned to what we’re doing here.’

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