The big issue for man shouldering striking burden as Portsmouth boss lays down blueprint for upping goal threat at Burnley

And Blues boss John Mousinho has told the striker’s Fratton team-mates they have to share the load of bringing cutting edge to their side’s campaign.

Mousinho’s men face another testing assignment, as they go in search of their maiden win of the campaign at Burnley this weekend.

They will need to improve their goal threat to do so, after looking short of potency in the past couple of games with three blanks from six outings this term.

The focus is set to fall on Christian Saydee up front, with Elias Sorensen the only other fit striker as Colby Bishop, Kusini Yengi and Mark O’Mahony all sit on the sidelines.

Saydee has two goals to his name this term, but the stats show that return has come from just four shots to date.

That represents an impressive 50 per cent conversion rate but that total is well down on other Championship attackers, with West Brom’s Josh Maja having 14 efforts on goal this term and Norwich’s Borja Sainz 13.

Putting himself in a position to threaten the goal more regularly is the immediate challenge for Saydee from the Pompey boss.

Mousinho said: ‘With Christian, it’s probably why we ended up playing him as a 10 last season.

‘He’s very, very good at linking play outside of the box, but a big area of development for him is when the ball does go wide he puts himself in an area where he can score.

‘I don’t think Christian misses a huge amount of chances, I think it’s putting himself in those positions to score or miss those chances.

‘It’s a big area of development we need to work on with Chris, operating in the 18-yard box and in the middle of the goal.

‘It’s finding himself in those areas to either score or miss. If he’s missing chances we wouldn’t be too bothered because we know he’d put it in the back of the net eventually, as he’s technically very good.’

Saydee has often been deployed as a number 10 in his time at Pompey, with his link-up play and ability to disrupt from a deeper role a major asset.

Mousinho feels that, in the event of the 22-year-old doing so, the onus is on his team-mates to find the positions to threaten goal.

He added: ‘It’s not just about Christian, we don’t want one centre-forward in the box at any one time.

‘That’s a big part of it and if Christian does find himself a bit deeper linking play, we need to get bodies beyond him.

‘We need to get runners in there. That can be the wide men, the 10, we don’t mind the sixes going in there and you’ve probably seen the full-backs in there a few times as well.

‘I do think as we’ve built to where we are the moment we haven’t see the results, but we’ve seen more positive performances and attacking displays.

‘Once we build upon that we should see more bodies in the box.’