Portsmouth boss: Now we’re equipped to win promotion

James Vaughan and Solomon-Otabor yesterday arrived on deadline day, adding to Lloyd Isgrove and Omar Bogle to conclude a busy week’s recruitment.

With Pompey’s prized assets retained, the flurry of fresh faces have bolstered a playing squad which had appeared worryingly light.

Presented with greater options, Jackett believes he has resolved the attacking concerns to have emerged in recent weeks.

And he’s satisfied the Blues now possesses the talent to shrug off three-successive League One defeats and secure Championship football next season.

Jackett said: ‘I certainly hope this will earn us promotion.

‘It will give us the best chance – and with some big months ahead of us.

‘In the great position we’re in, we want to be able to try to capitalise, and I’ve felt in recent weeks we’ve been slightly short in our front line.

‘We’ve been short of options, short of competition and short of the right substitutions to come off the bench.

‘There's nothing anybody can do about Andre Green and others getting called back, but as a club we have reacted well, bringing in Bogle, Isgrove, Solomon-Otabor and Vaughan. They give us options along those front-three positions.

‘We did feel in the front part of the side we were lacking options – and that is where we’ve concentrated our efforts, bringing in three players of different types.

‘We have Bogle on his left foot, James Vaughan with his experience, presence and physicality and Isgrove, who is an out-and-out ball-player with very, very good ability and can provide the ammunition for the guys in the box.

‘Looking at the three defeats, the best spell was the second half against Luton, where we created quite a number of chances.

‘We must now push on going forward and try to get the type of incisive play that gets us chances on a regular basis, because we will score goals.

‘But also get back to clean sheets, there are quite a number of games without those as well.’

For tomorrow’s visit of Doncaster, Pompey are also boosted by the availability of Oli Hawkins and Nathan Thompson following injury.

And Jackett believes their sustained absence also impacted on the Blues’ promotion push.

He added: ‘Perhaps Oli coming out has changed things slightly, while Ben Thompson going back cannot be underestimated.

‘People ask me about replacing him, but there aren’t many Ben Thompsons lying around, then there was losing the experience of Nathan Thompson at the back.

‘Similarly, some of those performances in the defeats were quite poor. Regardless of who was out on that particular day, we could have done better and have to recognise that as well.

‘It’s not all external, with a bad game or a bad spell you have to look at yourself too.

‘With the window closed, it’s now all to play for in the second half of the season.’