‘I have not come this far out of my comfort zone for this’, reveals Rafferty
Joe Rafferty fumed at Pompey’s wasted season as he targeted righting the wrongs of the 2022-23 campaign.
And he called for the Blues to put the foundations in place this summer to mount a serious attack at reaching the Championship next term.
Hopes of reaching the play-offs are all but dead after four draws on the bounce, leaving Pompey facing a seventh season in League One.
That’s a source of immense frustration for Rafferty, who stepped down from the Championship to mount a bid for success after his summer arrival from Preston.
The Scouser moved south to commit to earning more success – with the 29-yearold not prepared to accept mediocrity.
He said: ‘I’m under contract for another year, so I’ll probably be back here next season.
‘Basically, we need to try to push on and get promoted now. I’ve not come this far out of my way and this far out of my comfort zone for this.
‘I’m not just here to play games in League One for another year, I want to actually achieve something – I put pressure on myself to achieve something.
‘I’ve had one promotion in my career and the year we had was absolutely brilliant. A club like this should be achieving more than it has been and doing things like that.’
With 13 players out of contract, a fair amount of recruitment work lies ahead for Pompey this summer, though there is a decent spine of the team also tied down next term.
Rafferty added: ‘There’s a good few players out of contract, but there’s a good spine of the team here, but we’re going to have to get a good amount of players in as well.
‘There’s a good spine, but it probably sounds like a broken record to the fans saying: “next season we’ll go at it”.
‘As a Liverpool fan, we always said the same: “next season will be our season and we’ll win the league”. It didn’t happen for a number of years, but when it did it was incredible.
‘We don’t want to sound like broken records, so we need everything to be right to make a serious challenge.
‘That’s whether it’s players or stuff day to day, we need everything to be right, done properly and professionally to mount a proper challenge.’