The big boost Danny Cowley believes can aid Portsmouth in season's finale against Sheffield Wednesday, Rotherham United, Lincoln City, Wigan Athletic & Co

The Pompey boss has all of his options available to him in the middle of the park for the final seven games of the campaign.

That’s following the surprise return of Shaun Williams to the fray after fracturing his spine in January.

Cowley now has his full complement of midfield options with senior men Joe Morrell, Ryan Tunnicliffe, Louis Thompson and Williams available, along with youngsters Jay Mingi and Harry Jewitt-White.

Hopes of reaching the play-offs are diminishing, but the Pompey boss still thinks injury issues alleviating can add a decent finale from his players.

He said: ‘It’s very good (to have midfield options), we’ve been short in that position this side of Christmas.

‘Before Christmas we had issues at centre-half and I don’t think we’ve had many injuries this year when they haven’t been in the same position.

‘Pre-Christmas we had issues at centre-half and post Christmas we’ve been light in the midfield.

‘We would’ve liked to have added one more (midfielder) in January but it wasn’t possible, and when you don’t add one more you then on deadline day you lose Shaun Williams for an extended period and that’s just the nature of football.

‘It’s not ideal because it’s the engine room of your team.

‘The physical outputs of the players of those positions are very, very high and you would like, particularly when the games come as thick and fast as they have done for us in the second half of the season, you would like the flexibility to be able to change the team.

‘We haven’t had that but we are now in a position where we can rotate players in the midfield, and hopefully between now and the end of the season we can use that to our advantage.’

Pompey are set to move away from the kind of recruitment which has taken place in midfield this summer.

All four additions there came from Championship level, with the Blues now intending to recruit young, hungry up-and-coming additions instead.

Cowley feels the experience already in the place in the middle now gives the freedom to employ the new approach.

He added: ‘We are always striving for the right balance.

‘I think we’ve got some good experience in Shaun Williams, we’ve worked with Joe Morrell before, Ryan Tunnicliffe gives us an athleticism and we’ve been really pleased Louis Thompson has been available as consistently as he has been.

‘When we signed him, we were able to sign him on a contract which was very performance related because of the injury problems he’s had, so it’s been great he has been available as much as he has.

‘We’ve adapted the way we’ve trained him and that’s certainly helped him. His performances have grown as a consequence of having that consistency in his training and playing ability.’