Portsmouth boss addresses Fratton futures of ex-Manchester City and West Ham triallist and Derry City starlet

Central defender Jamal Baptiste and striker Sean Patton both turned out for the Blues in the first half of tonight’s 3-1 victory over Gosport.

Baptiste is aged 20 and came through the ranks at West Ham, before joining Manchester City last season and subsequently being released this summer.

The 17-year-old Patton signed a new deal with Derry City earlier this month before being sent out on loan to Finn Harps - and is now training with Pompey.

The pair are scheduled to remain at Fratton Park for the rest of the week and, according to John Mousinho, will feature in forthcoming games against the Hawks (Friday) and Bognor (Saturday).

The Blues head coach told The News: ‘We had Jamal Baptiste at centre-half and I thought he was very calm and composed on the ball, although not tested too much defensively.

‘We've got him here for the week. I think he will be involved in the games on Friday and Saturday and we’ll see where we go from there.

‘We also had Sean Patton up front, who looked nice and sharp. He had a couple of chances I think he would like to have done better with.

‘The same with Jamal, we’ll see where we are at the back end of the week and then go from there.

‘Sean is 17 and Jamal has come out of Academy football, they are the sort of players we are thinking of bringing on trial. We want to have a look at players who can possibly impact now, but in the future as well.’

The presence of the pair is in contrast to last summer, when Mousinho didn’t bring in any triallists during pre-season.

But Pompey’s boss insists the circumstances are different this time around.

He added: ‘We didn’t actually need any triallists last year and didn’t desperately need any this year, but we are one short at centre-half at the moment with Regan carrying out his ACL rehab.

‘This time last year we had four centre-backs, that’s one of the reasons why it was good to bring in Jamal.

‘And with Colby’s absence we thought we’d bring in a centre-forward as well, so they are just slightly different circumstances to this time last year.’