Portsmouth boss plots first-team pathway for Makenzie Kirk after landmark moment

A return of one goal from 58 Championship minutes reflects a striker in a hurry to impress at Fratton Park.

Yet despite rising clamour for Makenzie Kirk to be handed more opportunities, boss John Mousinho is adamant there’s ‘no rush’ to accelerate him into first-team football.

The 21-year-old opened his Pompey goal account in style on Tuesday night, conjuring up a clever lofted finish over Coventry keeper Chris Rushworth for a stoppage-time consolation.

Regardless of a 2-1 defeat, it was a moment for the deadline-day signing to cherish upon his third outing for the Blues.

In the two fixtures building up to the international break, Makenzie had found himself out of the first-team squad entirely, with Florian Bianchini preferred as the bench back-up to Colby Bishop.

Now the former St Johnstone man has a goal to his name - but Mousinho is remaining grounded.

Portsmouth boss: If he’s good enough, he’ll play

Pompey’s boss told The News: ‘We are in the infancy of Makenzie’s time at Pompey, not just in terms of actual time, but the fact he is such a young player. There’s no rush with him.

‘It was a really well-taken goal, he looked bright when he came on. If he puts in performances like that, if he’s good enough then he’s going to play.

‘With team selection, we go game-to-game and go on moments of the match and how we feel the game’s progressing. Certainly against Coventry we thought it was a good opportunity for Makenzie to come on.

‘He has a decent-enough goal-scoring record, he scored in the intentional break for Northern Ireland Under-21s and I thought if a shooting opportunity popped up then he would have a decent chance of taking it - which he did.

‘That’s why we signed him. Maybe I didn’t think he would have this sort of a big impact quite so early, but it’s very positive.’

Northern Ireland Under-21s

During the international break, the Northern Ireland international netted against Malta in the Euro Under-21 qualifiers, while also started against Germany.

After returning, he was restored to Pompey’s squad in last weekend’s impressive 1-1 draw at Leicester, albeit not used off the bench.

Then, on Tuesday night, he replaced the injured Adrian Segecic in the 74th minute for his second Fratton Park appearance and third overall.

Sure enough, in the sixth minute of time added-on, Terry Devlin put the ball into the right-hand channel of the penalty area which Kirk raced onto, before lifting it over the head of the visiting keeper with a right-footed half-volley.

‘He deserved his goal’

And Mousinho was delighted with the manner of the classy finish.

He added: ‘Makenzie had a couple of opportunities in behind, he ran the channels really well, gave us a different dimension and I was really pleased with the performance. He deserved his goal.

‘It was a cool, calm and collected finish in the circumstances. It just came a bit too late for us.’

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