Promising youngster answers Portsmouth striker SOS as loan ended after just 34 days

The former Crystal Palace striker and fellow second-year scholar Destiny Ojo temporarily joined Poole Town in July to maintain their promising development.

While Ojo has already netted for the non-leaguers and been regularly involved, Folarin had still to feature.

Following ankle ligament damage sustained by Kusini Yengi, on Monday the Blues recalled Folarin early from a loan spell scheduled to end in January.

According to Academy lead professional development phase coach Sam Hudson, the move is precautionary, with the youngster to provide back-up for Colby Bishop and Christian Saydee.

And he was subsequently an unused substitute in Tuesday night’s EFL Trophy encounter with Fulham Under-21s.

Hudson told The News: ‘Sam came back this week and won’t be returning to Poole.

‘A lot of it is to do with the injuries the first-team have had with Yengi, providing cover for that department, but he is with us (the Academy).

‘We never lost him fully anyway, he was continuing to train with us.

‘It’s just in case the first-team needs extra cover. We have seven games coming up, so will need players in the long run, while the first-team fixtures will start ramping up again after the international break.

‘There’s games coming up thick and fast, plus the cup games thrown in now, so they’ll soon be cramming in the fixtures.

‘Minutes were quite few and far between for Sam at Poole, but his recall doesn’t have anything to do with that.

‘We’ve had some in-house games behind closed doors, so you can top those minutes up that way. It’s not a case of being short of minutes so we need to bring him back, we’re topping him up anyway.’

Folarin featured three times in pre-season for the Blues, including winning the penalty converted by Joe Morrell in a 1-1 draw at Bognor.

In addition to Ojo at Poole, fellow second-year scholar Harvey Laidlaw is at Gosport, while Maxwell Hurst last week joined Baffins Milton Rovers for a month.

Hudson added: ‘Unlike the under-18s, where minutes are guaranteed across the season and everyone gets their minimum, with the first-team environment nothing is guaranteed.

‘You can get zero minutes if the relevant coaching staff don’t feel like they want to start you for whatever reason.

‘The lads are experiencing that now where you have to fight for every single minute of every single training session for that starting spot.’