Portsmouth boss Paul Hart claims the club are paying the price for trying to compete with the best sides in England.

He told the Daily Mail: "We had to beg, steal and borrow in our search for players.

"We had to call in favours, defer payments. Even now I'm not sure if we have actually paid a penny to anyone for the lads we brought in.

"The previous owner (Sacha) Gaydamak, (manager) Harry Redknapp and Storrie took this club to the heights.

"It was incredible the way this club punched above its weight. Not least by winning the FA Cup 18 months ago.

"But this was a club with gates of no more than 19,000 that had the fourth-highest wage bill in the Premier League.

"There were some great players here (Sol) Campbell, Sylvain (Distin), (Lassana) Diarra, (Jermain) Defoe, (Peter) Crouch, (Niko) Kranjcar and Glen (Johnson).

"That group of players enabled this club to compete with the very best. But ultimately there was a price to pay for that and that is the situation we find ourselves in now."

Hart has also revealed that he told lies to the media in order to hide the extent of the problem.

He added: "It has been crazy from the day we returned to pre-season training on 9th July. I had 14 players. Fourteen players!

"I had to lie to the media, tell them we had a squad of 20, because the truth was just too shocking.

"I ended up getting a load of names from the youth team and adding them to the list."

Hart added: "I know I haven't been in a more difficult job than this one. It's never been as hard as this. Sometimes you feel that just getting on the training pitch is a reward."