Pompey perked by their Indian summer

AFTER a summer of almost unrelenting misery, autumn appears to be yielding fresh hope at Portsmouth.

As if recording a first win of the season on Saturday was not enough sunshine for the south coast club, their financial clouds could also be set to disperse after Sulaiman al-Fahim, their would-be owner, entered negotiations to sell his majority shareholding in the club to a consortium led by Saudi property tycoon Ali al-Faraj.

Al-Faraj has supplied the £5million bridging loan needed this week to pay the wages of club staff and looks set to buy out the majority of Al-Fahim’s stake within a matter of days.

“I think by Monday or Tuesday (Al-Faraj) will be on the board,” al Fahim said. “His consortium will be a major shareholder and I will keep a minority.”

Al Fahim, recovering in hospital following an operation to remove kidney stones on Friday, said he will meet representatives of Al-Faraj’s consortium today, while the club’s playing squad are to finally be paid September’s wages this morning.

The news of a possible new buy-out provides a new twist to a turbulent period at Fratton Park, but matters on the field at least appear to be improving, with Paul Hart’s side ending a run of seven straight Premier League defeats at Molineux thanks to Hassan Yebda’s header.

“We’ve been through the mill in many ways – the club, the players, the fans, everyone working with us, but we have stuck together,” Hart said.

“They are a great bunch of lads, they have shown great spirit and they have never wavered.

“We’d won two games in the Carling Cup and that had given us a lift. We’ve drawn on that but we knew we needed a win in the Premier League.

“The win was absolutely brilliant and I am pleased for everyone connected with the club. We’ve had a tough time but I don’t think it should finish with these three points. We need to build on that.

“Interestingly Tottenham, after eight games of last season, had two points and they nearly finished in Europe. I am not saying we are going to finish in Europe! Our fans are fantastic. You saw the support away at Carlisle in the Carling Cup. What a trip that was midweek.

“I am pleased they came to Wolves and saw a win. They deserved it, the players, the club deserved it – but now we have to get more points.”

Wolves midfielder Christophe Berra insists there was no complacency from the home side when facing their bottom-placed opponents.

He said: “I wasn’t surprised how good they were. They are not in the Premier League for nothing. They’ve got quality players. We didn’t expect anything less from them.

“It’s not like we came here thinking ‘this is going to be an easy game.’ That is so far from the truth. It just never happened for us. We’ve only played badly once this season.

“There are going to be good and hard times ahead. We never came up from the Championship thinking it was going to be easy. We knew when we came up we would be one of the favourites to go down. It is going to be right to the death. It’s only eight games. We could go on a run and win three or four in a row. Football is a crazy game.”

REFEREE: Howard Webb (Yorkshire) 5: Should have awarded Wolves a penalty after Marc Wilson handled in the area.

MATCH RATING: *** Frantic stuff for long spells but Pompey were worthy winners.