Portsmouth boss’ squad dilemma as he outlines plans for rest of January window

But the Blues boss feels he had to deliver a January player reshuffle, as he outlined his recruitment plans for the rest of the window.

Lewis Ward this week became the fourth new face to arrive this month, following the signings of Charlie Daniels, Harvey White and George Byers.

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There’s also been departures from PO4 with Cam Pring recalled by Bristol City, while Bryn Morris and Reeco Hackett-Fairchild left on loan deals.

Jackett is confident he’s raised the level of his squad, but knows the new faces are coming to play.

That would mean upheaval to the starting XI which had put Pompey in a powerful position, before stuttering with defeats to promotion rivals in the past two games.

Jackett is aware he has to be careful not to tinker with his options and have a detrimental effect on the push to reach the Championship.

He said: ‘This month it’s Reeco Hackett-Fairchild, Bryn Morris and Cam Pring going out.

‘Then we’ve brought in Daniels, Byers, White and now Ward.

‘We’ll see now if we can get the most out of them over the second half of the season and help us to improve, and in some cases maintain our standards.

‘You don’t want to be making wholesale changes in January.

‘We’ve got some good players here already, so in terms of squad dynamics it’s a balance.

‘You don’t necessarily want to upset the rhythm you’re in.

‘But with one or two pushing to go and asking me if they can go, it was always going to be the case that is an opportunity arose in January we’d let them go.

‘Then it was also for us to maybe freshen up an area.‘When you have players on loan, as we did with Cameron Pring, there’s always that possibility they get called back to their parent club, too, which has obviously happened.

‘I do think we’ve got as much depth and cover as we can.

‘You always want your best players available and you want your team to get into a good routine if you can.

‘But, similarly, you always know different situations come up and also with Covid as well you can suddenly be without three or four players for no fault of your own.

‘So you have to do everything you can to work across the board and cover each area.’

Jackett has given an insight into how he now sees the rest of the transfer window panning out for Pompey, after Ward took the final spot in his 22-man squad.

The only way further recruits could be made before the deadline on Monday night at 11pm would be to sign a player aged 21 or under, or to deregister one of the existing squad players and leave them frozen out.

That looks likely to hand Jackett and his recruitment staff a watching brief over any possible signing opportunities, rather than seeing the Blues actively trying to recruit.

Jackett added: ‘The only ones we have available now are ones outside of the cap.

‘We’ll see what happens and we’ll assess it all of the time, but they are the only possibilities.

‘There’s no possibility to bring someone in unless we deregister somebody.

‘So there are no immediate plans, and we want to just work hard to bed in the new lads and get the most out of them.’,

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