Kenny Jackett reveals change he's planning to get Portsmouth into the Championship next season

The Blues boss has outlined how he’s preparing to turn to his younger squad members and give them a chance to make the English game’s second tier at the fourth time of asking.

Supporters are still reeling from the latest play-off failure and widespread anger is being aimed at the Pompey manager from the fan base.

Jackett is now taking stock of why it went wrong as his men missed out on the automatic slots, after the season was suspended and decided on a points-per-game average.

And he has immediately targeted looking to emerging talent to put things right moving forward.

Of the current first-team squad contracted for next season, there are nine players aged 24 or under.

Among them are homegrown players Jack Whatmough, Ben Close, Alex Bass and Haji Mnoga while there’s a trio of academy talents handed third-year scholarships in Harry Kavanagh, Eoin Teggart and Alfie Stanley.

Jackett acknowledged there will be a turnover of players over the next couple of months, but wants to look at bolstering his options while utilising the talent he believes he can call upon.

He said: ‘The top 10 of League One is a good competition. I’ve always felt that.

‘When you see Sunderland and Ipswich not finish in the top six, it shows what a good competition it is.

‘From our point of view after coming out of League Two we want to be in that mix.

‘We have to do everything possible to reach the Championship.

‘We have to base it on some good young players we have coming through, who we’ve invested time and effort in.

‘They have to keep improving. That’s where I see it.

‘While there is a natural evolution and turnover in the summer, there always is. One way or another we want to find a way to secure the people we want to secure and add the right players to balance off with the ones we have coming back.’

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