Portsmouth have turned down deadline day offers for Jason Pearce from three different Championship clubs, including from Town, according to reports on the south coast. The Blues are trying to land the central defender and team-mates Joel Ward and Stephen Henderson before the window closes at 11pm this evening.
Town are continuing to talk to Pompey, with their parent company Convers Sports Initiatives’ administrator also involved in the discussions. Negotiations - and bidding - is set to run right to this evening’s deadline with all three Blues targets understood to have been at training at Portsmouth’s training ground this morning.
The Hampshire club need to sell players due their ongoing financial problems which saw them issued with a winding-up order last week with a court hearing set for February 20th, their bank accounts frozen and players not paid.
Australian winger Ryan Williams looks set to join Fulham for £500,000 but they would appear to need to raise significantly more than that with HMRC owed £1.6 million in unpaid PAYE.
Even if all aspects of the deal (or deals) aren’t sorted before tonight’s deadline, Town have previously signed players such as Alan Quinn and Jon Stead on loan initially with the details of a permanent switch completed in the days afterwards.