Storrie: I won’t quit

Portsmouth chief executive Peter Storrie has confirmed he will stay with the club, and admitted it would be “daft and stupid” to sack manager Paul Hart.

Pompey missed a host of chances in a 1-0 home defeat against Everton yesterday – their seventh successive setback, and remain anchored to the foot of the table.

Today’s newspapers have suggested time is not on Paul Hart’s side, with former Celtic boss Gordon Strachan one of the names to be linked to the club.

However, Storrie believes Hart can turn things around.

He said: “It’s okay people saying ‘go and change things’ but look at the performance yesterday, and the support.

“It was a very strong performance we think we can build on for the future. You’d be daft and stupid to change it.”

Meanwhile, Storrie remains optimistic the spending power of new owner Sulaiman Al Fahim will soon make the squad stronger.

He continued on Radio Five Live’s Sportsweek: “He’s said there’s £50million coming, publicly at a meeting to supporters on Friday night.

“Sulaiman showed the board documentation to say the money’s there. We hope it all comes to fruition in the next few days.

“We can only go by what he’s told the fans and what we’ve seen.”

Storrie has ended speculation he will leave the club, adding: “Making sure the club is sound and the finances come in has always been the main issue for me,

so I’m very happy to stay and continue being at a club I’ve enjoy being at for the last seven years.”

He appreciated Pompey fans singing his name at yesterday’s game, adding: “It makes you feel quite humble, to be honest – they didn’t need to do it but I appreciate it very much.

“If they feel like that I want to be there to continue to help and wouldn’t walk out on the club.

“It’s been a hard eight or nine months but I thought we played extremely well yesterday and were unfortunate not to win.

“Then the crowd chant your name – it makes you think ‘this doesn’t happen to many chief executives’.”

Storrie admitted the Hampshire club’s financial problems prevented the club from being able to replace quality players such as Peter Crouch, Sylvain Distin and Nico Kranjcar during the transfer window.

He explained: “There’s been a massive change and we’ve had to bring players in at the last minute but the performance yesterday was the best for some while.

“We’re confident the players will turn it around – and they are too.”

Storrie refuted suggestions the new arrivals are not good enough for the Premier League.

He explained: “All the players we’ve brought have either played in the Premier League, come from the Premier League, or played in top leagues in Europe.

And he remains convinced the club will maintain their top flight status, despite making the worst start in Premier League history.

He added: “We’re still hanging in there and hopefully this finance will mean the hard work over the last six or seven months will come to fruition and we’ll be strong.

“We’re confident – if you see players’ heads down you’d be worried or not creating chances, but we should have had something in five out of the seven games.”