Latest: Portsmouth boss discusses Reading signing’s future as he bids for Charlton Athletic promotion

Pompey will look to sell Tom McIntyre this summer.

The News understands the Blues will seek to move on the out-of-favour defender, who has spent the second half of the season out on loan with Charlton Athletic.

Boss John Mousinho has admitted he feels his squad is currently top heavy in the centre-back department, with six contracted players in that position next season.

McIntyre is among that number, with the 26-year-old having another year to go on his agreement after arriving at Fratton Park at the start of last year.

The former Reading man has made 14 Blues appearances, but found playing time increasingly hard to come by and didn’t feature again after a difficult night in the 4-0 loss at Derby last December.

The fact Pompey would action a permanent exit for McIntyre isn’t the greatest surprise, given his current situation.

Ryley Towler is another defender the Blues will look to shift, with the former Bristol City man down the pecking order in his position. That leaves Conor Shaughnessy, Regan Poole, Hayden Matthews and Ibane Bowat as the contracted options for next term.

Pompey want to bring Rob Atkinson back after his excellent loan stay this term, with the 26-year-old keen to return if the opportunity presents itself.

The football operation are looking at other options in that area too, with Mousinho explaining he would like to have five centre-backs to pick from.

That’s one more than the Pompey boss would ordinarily like to have in his squad, but, given the injuries the players there have had in the past, Mousinho thinks it would be prudent to have that number.

Mousinho said: ‘Tom’s one where he’s still playing with Charlton, so we’ll monitor how that goes for him and go from there.

‘He’s one of six contracted centre-backs we have for next year and the numbers obviously don’t go.

‘We want to carry four, maybe five but probably not six. I say five because if you look at the number of injuries we’ve had across those players all of them have picked up significant injuries over the past couple of years except Ryley.

‘So that where we are with that one, so we need to be flexible with Tom.’

Pompey man left out of Charlton Athletic play-offs

McIntyre has made 10 appearances in his time with Charlton, with four of those outings coming as starts for Nathan Jones’ team. He’s featured more infrequently for the Addicks as the season’s gone on, however, with his last start coming in a 2-1 win over Northampton in April.

McIntyre was taken off after 54 minutes of that success and has not since featured in any of Charlton’s past five games. The left footer was an unused sub against Wrexham and Burton Albion, but then failed to make Jones’ squad for either of their play-off games against Wycombe.

Charlton picked up a 1-0 home success against the Chairboys on Thursday night, to set up a final date with Leyton Orient next week as they bid to make it to the Championship.

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