‘Whether he can emulate George Hirst I'm not so sure’ - The Barnsley verdict on reported Portsmouth target Victor Adeboyejo

The 24-year-old is out-of-contract at Oakwell this summer, despite the Tykes offering him fresh terms, with Danny Cowley reportedly keen to strike a deal.

The forward has netted just seven goals in 97 outings for the Reds during his five-year stay, which doesn’t make for pretty reading for the Fratton faithful

To get a better understanding of the player, though, we spoke to Barnsley Chronicle sports editor Doug O’Kane, who gave us an insight into Adeboyejo.

Here’s what was said…

‘He’s quite an opinion-splitting player.

‘His attitude and work rate are outstanding and he is a really committed and driven person. He’s a real character and a lot of fans appreciate that and like that.

‘His strengths, footballing-wise, are his physicality and ability to hold the ball up.

‘He has got other strengths as well, but it’s not as simple as saying he’s good at this or he’s good at that. He can do a lot of things, but he’s just a bit raw and inconsistent.

‘His touch, sometimes, is really good, but the other times it’s really quite poor so he hasn’t quite found that consistency just yet.

‘Same with his finishing. Sometimes he misses some good chances but he also scores some really good goals.

‘What I would add is that he hasn’t been given that much of an opportunity.

‘I think he’s come off the bench 65 times so it’s mainly been a few minutes here and there. It’s not as if he’s had loads of chances.

‘I think that has always been the biggest worry about him – that he doesn’t score anywhere near regularly enough. Pompey fans have every right to question if he’s good enough.

‘There’s certainly potential there, but whether he can emulate George Hirst I'm not so sure.

‘He’s about 6ft so he’s not absolutely huge and isn’t the target man striker who is going to win loads of headers and flick them on for a smaller, faster player.

‘His strength is his hold-up play and if you get the ball into him then the idea is that he is very strong and can hold players up and link play.

‘Again, it goes back to his consistency, sometimes he does that really well and sometimes not so much.

‘He can be a decent squad player for a team pushing for promotion.

‘But whether he can be a regular starter week-in, week-out and scoring goals then the jury has to be out on that because it’s just not proven.’