Whatmough comes through Portsmouth injury test

Jack Whatmough enhanced his first-team claims after a successful reserve run-out against Oxford United.
Jack Whatmough featured for 61 minutes during Pompey Reserves' victory over Oxford United. Picture: Joe PeplerJack Whatmough featured for 61 minutes during Pompey Reserves' victory over Oxford United. Picture: Joe Pepler
Jack Whatmough featured for 61 minutes during Pompey Reserves' victory over Oxford United. Picture: Joe Pepler

The central defender, inset, made his injury comeback in last night's fixture at Baffins Milton Rovers' PMC Stadium.

Featuring for 61 minutes before substituted in a pre-determined decision, there was no reaction to the hamstring problem which kept him out of four Blues matches.

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Jake Wigley's side triumphed 2-1, through Louis Dennis and Joe Mason's penalty.

And the first-team coach praised Whatmough's display.

He said: '˜Jack was always pencilled in to come off. To be fair, he played a little bit more because I thought he was doing well.

'˜He looked strong so I kept him on a little bit longer. There were no problems with him, he was never going to play the full 90 minutes.

'˜Jack put in a strong performance. He came up against two big, strong centre-forwards and dominated them both.

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'˜He won his headers, covered around well, got the second balls '“ I don't think he gave them much of a sniff.

'˜Obviously Oxford's goal came when we had just made the substitution and taken him off.

'˜He has been training since last week and was always pencilled in for this game, but there's no point putting him in for 90 minutes because, at the end of the day, we are risking him.

'˜There's no need to play him longer than 60 minutes and, looking forward, he is now in the manager's mind for the coming weeks because he is fully fit.'