Pompey boss Michael Appleton says Town’s trio of targets Jason Pearce, Joel Ward and Stephen Henderson never wanted to leave his club during the transfer window, despite their ongoing crisis. The Blues had several offers rebuffed for central defender Pearce, while keeper Henderson and midfielder or defender Ward were unable to agree personal terms.
Appleton said: "You can talk about Ipswich and the three boys but as far as I’m concerned — and I’m probably exaggerating — you could have Manchester United interested in your players but if they don’t want to leave, they have the final say.
"You can’t literally gag them, put them in the boot of your car, drive them to the club and make them sign.
"I’ve not made a big deal of it but I’m sure they will want to show that they have made the right choice. You could tell they had a sigh of relief on their faces once the window was shut.
"We take it as a massive compliment as a club that, even under everything that’s going on and all the circumstances that have arisen over the past few months, that they want to hang around. We must be doing something OK.”
But Appleton admits that with Pompey set to enter administration, the closing of the window might not be an end to the matter: "It may come up again if they try to make another offer or try to get them on some kind of loan agreement, but as soon as the window was shut we moved on.”
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