'A little knack of getting goals': Portsmouth talent hailed as scoring streak continues to book quarter-final spot
The promising striker has nine goals in 14 appearances for the Blues this season
Piero Mingoia believes there is still plenty more to come from talented Kyan Sylvanus as his impressive scoring streak continues.
The powerful striker opened the scoring for a youthful Pompey in Tuesday night’s Hampshire Senior Cup victory at Horndean.
It followed bagging a hat-trick at the Hawks last week in the same competition - and takes his season tally to nine in 14 appearances for the Blues.
Substitute Jakub Jablonski also joined Sylvanus on the scoresheet at Five Heads Park in the 2-0 win over the Wessex League Premier Division outfit, although Brandon Downey missed a late penalty.
And lead professional development phase coach Mingoia is convinced the in-form centre-forward can only get better.
‘Kyran was very brave to put his head there to score’
He told The News: ‘Kyran is obviously a big striker for his age and there are bits we are working on him with, but he has a little knack of getting goals.
‘We think we can get more if he just calmed down a bit, that’s the biggest thing we’re working on, just being a bit calmer in and around the box.
‘Fraser Thomas’ cross was an absolute bullet, Kyran was very brave to put his head there to score, but that’s what good strikers do.
‘Physically he probably moved ahead of everyone else when he was younger, now it’s just using that as a strength, but also working on other parts of his game.
‘Maybe as he gets older and people get bigger, he might not just be able to rely on physicality, so playing with the ball and playing with his team-mates a bit more.’
At Horndean, Pompey were without Elisha Pfupa, who is on Zimbabwe Under-23 duty, in addition to Billy Gillooly (injured), Julian Korsah (suspended) and Ashton Sizer (concussion).
With only players aged 16 or over allowed to play in the Hampshire Senior Cup, that left Mingoia with just three available subs, of which two were outfield players.
And he was delighted with how his young side performed to progress into the quarter-finals.
‘They enjoy testing themselves’
He added: ‘Potentially Horndean is a really difficult place to come, the boys were competing against a decent men’s team, plus the conditions on the day, so it normally stacks against the younger players.
‘But we have a good strong group in terms of character, the bigger the challenge they enjoy testing themselves - and I think they would have proved that on Tuesday night.
‘They stood up to the challenge they had to face and, ultimately, managed to do what we try to do every week and that's trying to play football. We scored some really good goals and maybe should have had more.
‘It was a really, really positive performance, young boys standing up to men and then finding a way to implement their way of playing football.’