Danny Cowley provides grim time frame on Portsmouth winger Michael Jacobs' injury

The Pompey winger was absent for Saturday’s 2-1 defeat to Burton Albion at Fratton Park.

Having had a spell on the treatment table earlier in the season with a knee problem, that issue again flared up in the 1-0 win at Wigan on Easter Monday.

It means the former Wolves man must undergo an operation in the coming days, leaving Danny Cowley s attacking options decimated.

Ellis Harrison (knee) and Jordy Hiwula (ankle) are both absent while John Marquis, who has been suspended for the past three games, is also struggling with an ankle knock.

Cowley admits Jacobs' season is over – and it may be three months until he’s fully fit again.

The Pompey head coach said: ‘It's just disappointing, he got a kick to the back of his knee on Monday.

‘He’d had a medial knee ligament injury at the beginning of the season and that has flared again.

‘Now it looks like we will lose him for the season, he’s going to need an operation because it looks like it’s worse than it was last time round.

‘That’s tough for us. We know we’ve got no Jordy, no Ellis and we didn’t have Johnny because he had his third game of his suspension and even he had to have an injection into his ankle.

‘It’s pretty tough for us at the top end of the pitch at the minute.

‘It looks like he will have an operation at the start of next week. Early diagnosis they are saying between 8-12 weeks. We’ll have to see how the operation goes.’

After Cowley joked he’d send an SOS to his dad following John Marquis’ red card against Shrewsbury, he quipped brother and assistant head coach Nicky will now be asked to feature.

He added: ‘We have some issues haven’t we in terms of players running out. I’ll have to get Nicky to put his boots on because he did ever so well for me for seven years.’

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

The News has launched a subscription offer which gives you unlimited access to all of our Pompey coverage, starting at less than 14p a day.

You can subscribe here to get the latest news from Fratton Park - and to support our local team of expert Pompey writers.