The left-back made 31 appearances during a massively unsuccessful two years at Fratton Park.
Denver Hume’s time at Fratton Park remains an intriguing contrast.
The £200,000 flop who wasn’t all that horrible is the left-back’s legacy during a dismal two-year stint on the south coast.
Hume’s stint with Pompey proved to be an expensive failure, with only 31 appearances.
However, there are some cautions to consider when looking back on one of the most perplexing Blues careers in recent memory.
Danny Cowley paid £200,000 to sign him from Sunderland in January 2022, a substantial price in the post-Kenny Jackett era.
The head coach had implemented a back three at the start of December, six weeks earlier, and saw Hume as an ideal left wing-back.
As an attack-oriented player, it made sense. Reeco Hackett, a winger, and Lee Brown, a more conventional full-back, had both been trialled there.
Furthermore, Cowley wanted to get rid of Brown after their relationship fell apart, despite the fact that the Checkatrade Trophy winner was a powerful figure and strong voice in the dressing room.
In terms of football, Hume appeared to be a sound investment, only for Pompey’s manager to virtually abandon the wing-back formation just three games later.
Hume’s first two games, against Charlton and Oxford United, were defeats, but he did win 2-1 against Burton on his third appearance in February 2022.
Cowley’s men had an impressive conclusion to the season, winning 10 of their last 18 games and losing only three.
Unfortunately for Hume, it coincided with a return to a back four, with the former Sunderland player starting only five of them as Connor Ogilvie was preferred at left-back.
To be fair, a prolapsed disc in his back sidelined him for the next five months beginning in mid-March, and he has battled to reintegrate into the head coach’s plans since then.
Cowley made a flurry of games in the last weeks of his tenure, albeit impacted by the need to switch Ogilvie to centre-back, and then made his FA Cup debut against Tottenham.
However, with the arrival of John Mousinho, Hume was only named to a Pompey League One team once in the next 12 months, when Ogilvie was absent with a dead leg.
In April 2023, the new head coach stated the Blues’ desire to offload Hume: I just want to be fair to him, that’s all. I don’t want to lose Denver; he’s a vital asset around here; we just need to be realistic.
Last Monday, on deadline day, more than nine months later, those ties were finally broken following a free transfer swap to Grimsby for the balance of the season.
Hume was pigeonholed as a wing-back at a club that had primarily used a back four for at least 18 months, and he was a victim of playing systems rather than his own performances.
Without a doubt, the highlight was a 2-1 win over Shrewsbury in February 2022, his fifth appearance – and at a wing-back – but he struggled to elevate performances above satisfactory.
Granted, there was the Hampshire Senior Cup at Bournemouth, where we were taken apart by David Brooks, who scored three goals in the first 37 minutes.
Hume was, on the whole, mediocre. nor terrible, nor outstanding, just bang ordinary. Perhaps best exemplified by their performance in the AFC Wimbledon Bristol Street Motors Trophy fiasco in December.
A popular player in the dressing room, there was no sulking, and his professionalism around the club when out of favour earned him two appearances this season, despite having no future at Fratton Park.
Tellingly, Hume was included on last summer’s pre-season tour to Spain and continued to train with the first team, rather than facing banishment, as many other players had.
Perhaps Hume was the right player at the wrong moment and in the wrong system. What is certain is that he marks one of Pompey’s most costly transfer errors in contemporary history.
