Portsmouth striker boost as return date given for front man to bolster Championship survival run-in
Pompey are in need of striker options in their fight for Championship survival - with the Aussie handing them a much-needed attacking pick-me-up.
Thomas Waddingham is ready to put seven months of injury pain to bed with a return to the Pompey fray.
Blues boss John Mousinho has confirmed the striker is set for a comeback at Middlesbrough next week, in a boost to his side’s foundering front line.
Riverside set to be the stage for Pompey striker’s return
Waddingham is looking to put a nightmare period behind him, with his time at Fratton Park restricted to just a single league start and 10 appearances in total since arriving from Brisbane Roar in 2023.
The 20-year-old’s season has been decimated by a quad issue, after featuring in the first five games of the campaign for Mousinho’s side.
But Waddingham is now back in training, as he aims to pep up Pompey’s front line which has so clearly struggled for goals this term.
Mousinho said: ‘Wadds will be back, hopefully if all goes well for the Middlesbrough game.
‘He’s been training now so hopefully he continues on that path, it might not be that but we’re looking at that now.
‘As we get closer and closer to the time, we’re happier to put timescales on some of those injured players.’
Pompey ‘hopeful’ over Waddingham impact before injury woe
Waddingham’s return will see the Aussie compete with Colby Bishop and Makenzie Kirk for playing time in the number nine position.
Bishop’s travails this term have been well publicised, with one league goal in open play amid three finishes for the top scorer of the previous three seasons.
Kirk, meanwhile, has a single finish from four starts and 10 sub appearances, with Aussie Adrian Segecic leading the goal charts with six strikes.
Mousinho told how Pompey had high hopes for the impact Waddingham could have this term before injury struck.
He added: ‘I think if you look back to the first games of the season before Tom got injured, he came on against Oxford, he came on against Norwich, he played about half an hour against West Brom and he started against Reading.
‘He played in a significant number of those games and he definitely was our first change or, for example in the West Brom games, we put him up front with Colby.
‘That would’ve been a combination which would’ve worked well.
‘That came off the back of pre-season when he had a big contribution and scored a lot of goals, we were really hopeful for him.’