Portsmouth owner and chairman Michael Eisner. Picture: Chris Moorhouse

But Pompey’s owner has stressed the importance of not becoming ‘hysterical’ during the creation of foundations.

Tornante’s maiden season as owners yielded an eighth-placed finish in League One.

There was also a sustained play-off challenge, which petered out during the final fortnight of the campaign.

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It represents an encouraging platform for the Blues following four years away.

At times, Tornante’s goals have been questioned, with an approach centred on building the club rather than seeking swift success.

Yet Eisner leaves in no doubt his driving ambition for Pompey.

He said: ‘You don’t do anything for failure. We will have failure, there will be a season somewhere when everybody will be unhappy, it happens. I would like to keep that to a very minimum.

‘Going into the Championship would be our ambition, that is what our goal is.

‘I don’t think we’d like to stay in League One for four years like League Two but a lot of other teams have the same ambition.

‘Some of it is lucky or down to injury. We are not going to change managers twice a year, we are not going to be hysterical, we are not going to be run by fear.

‘Instant success is an illusion. Instant success comes after an enormous amount of hard work. People say that a person is an overnight success – but there is no such thing.

‘The Beatles weren’t an instant success, they had worked for years singing in places like Germany. Instant success is a fantasy, success is based on work.

‘We want success, there is a lot of investment to get to the point of success and, if you don’t get success, that investment is gone.

‘That has happened to so many football clubs.

‘They make this enormous investment, they are investing in the wrong thing, they are investing too quickly and don’t have the right management.

‘We’ll make some mistakes but we are not going to make mistakes and be imprudent and stupid, I hope.’

A proposed season of stability has delivered just that.

Now Eisner wants Pompey to build on that as they tackle summer recruitment.

He added: ‘This was a very solid season for us. We were in play-off contention until the last week, we were never out of it.

‘I think we were surprised how well we did before Christmas and then had this expectation it would continue after Christmas but we didn’t do as well. That’s sport.

‘Of course we want to be better the season after, we must always improve.

‘Anybody can do it once, anybody can win the Academy award once, anybody can win the FA Cup once, it’s consistency.