Portsmouth Lose Niko Kranjcar... and Creativity?

Portsmouth Football Club supporters were met with the news today that attacking midfielder Niko Kranjcar will be sidelined for up to three months.

The Croatian midfielder injured ligaments in his country's match against Slovenia last week, and has been forced to undergo surgery to fix the problem.

This is a crushing blow for Portsmouth supporters, as Kranjcar is an excellent lad that adds youth and a great amount of talent to our side. After a relatively mediocre first season at Fratton Park two years ago, the midfielder settled in perfectly in his second year of English football, and plays a significant role in manager Harry Redknapp's plans for this season.

I previously wrote about the impact of Kranjcar on Portsmouth's side—just before the major media outlets began lavishing their praises on the Croatian—and much of what I wrote in that article is why I am particularly alarmed at the loss of the Croatian (have a read).

The concern is that, much more than simply a young and talented player, Niko Kranjcar is the very heart of Portsmouth's creativity. And without him, I am growing increasingly concerned about how often our side will score over these next few months.

We undoubtedly have an absolutely incredible strike pairing in Jermain Defoe and Peter Crouch, but Kranjcar proved last season to be the key link between our midfield and the front-line.

And while Defoe and Crouch are talented and creative in their own right, the first two matches of this season against Chelsea and Champions Manchester United have proven how inefficient we are when the midfield becomes stifled.

I am certain the two frontmen will score goals on their own, but without less muscle and more creativity from the midfield, how efficient will they be?

Sean Davis and Papa Bouba Diop are strong, competent midfielders. But creativity is not their strength. With the loss of Muntari and Mendes, and even Matty Taylor at the beginning of the year, Kranjcar has definitely been in Redknapp's plans as the creative force in the midfield.

The task will now be left to Lassana Diara alone who—while having already proven his immense quality—is mainly a strong box-to-box midfielder.

While I am not running to the panic button like a number of Portsmouth supporters (after all, we were only stomped by a team that has more than £100 million in players in their first team and who haven't lost at home in more than four seasons, as well as the reigning English and European Champions), I am afraid that we aren't going to be seeing as strong of a start to this season as we have had in the past two seasons.

Which begs the question—will we improve this season on our past two? A huge part of the reason we were so successful was excellent form in the beginning and middle of the season, with a not-so-wonderful finish in the league.

Hopefully, this year we'll prove to be more consistent against the teams we need to beat. We have to: otherwise, we may be out of the race for Europe shortly after it has begun.

But the loss of Kranjcar will be crushing. Already lacking in width, it is going to be imperative that Armand Traore and Jerome Thomas prove their potential, despite their inexperience. And it is time for John Utaka to step up and fill the void left by Kranjcar.