Portsmouth chief outlines transfer strategy and prospect of free agents arriving before January

And the focus will be on freeing up space in Danny Cowley’s budget, to allow the Blues boss to tweak his squad when the window opens on January 1.

Pompey held a recruitment meeting on Thursday night, to plot their path forward when it comes to bringing in players.

Clubs are still able to bring in out-of-contract players, with some League One rivals doing just that in recent weeks.

But chief-executive Andy Cullen feels his outfit are unlikely to follow suit.

He said: ‘January is the next milestone.

‘We had a recruitment meeting on Thursday, not just looking at next summer but what we can do in January and how we can create some more headroom.

‘I don’t think you’ll see much between now and January.

‘Never say never, but the window will open on January 1 and it will be having spent the budget already, what can we potentially do?

‘We will maybe have to do some wheeler-dealing in January to create some headroom.

‘I’ve been here many times before and you can create headroom by being creative.’

Cowley carried out a complete overhaul of his squad this summer with 15 players coming in and 18 departing.

With two-thirds of his playing budget tied up in one third of his squad, the 42-year-old opted to focus the majority of his remaining finances on a few experienced additions.

Cullen added: ‘We have a squad of players in.

‘They demonstrated last Saturday what they are capable of achieving, and there are good players in the squad who can’t make the starting XI.

‘Danny’s quite clear he wanted quality over quantity and at the end of the day, the manager is given the budget and will do what he chooses with it.

‘It’s important he has the final say.’

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