Portsmouth boss Danny Cowley has provided a first-team injury update ahead of Saturday’s friendly against Coventry and the season opener seven days later.
Pompey came through the Leyton Orient friendly largely unscathed, winning the match 5-2 thanks to a brace from on-loan Ipswich Town striker Joe Pigott and goals from Marlon Pack,
a Ronan Curtis penalty and a comical own goal from Orient defender Shad Ogie. A Portsmouth XI were in action 24 hours later against Bognor Regis Town, a match which Cowley attended.
Sean Raggett, Joe Morrell and Jayden Reid all missed Tuesday’s game and the Portsmouth coach has given an update on the trio, with two set to miss out on the League One opener
against Sheffield Wednesday next Saturday, while the other will be expected to feature this weekend in Portsmouth ‘s final pre-season fixture when Coventry make the trip to Fratton Park.
Sean’s going to be fine and we’re expecting him to play on Saturday, while Joe has had an operation on his groin, but that should only keep him out for three weeks,” Cowley told the club’s official website.
“He picked it up in the international break with Wales and it hasn’t quite settled, so it just made sense to tidy it up.“Jayden had come back in such good shape,
but it looks a hamstring tear. We hope for the best and expect the worse, but we’ll have to see what the specialist says.”
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The Sky Blues complete their pre-season programme at Portsmouth this weekend when most fans would expect to see a starting eleven as close as possible to the one likely to open the new season at the Stadium of Light a week on Sunday.
But asked if he’s going to use the long trip to Pompey as a dress rehearsal for the mouth-watering fixture against City’s bitter Black Cats rivals, the manager said:
“They all have been really. We have been trying to get minutes into people’s legs but also look at things. They certainly won’t be finalised on Saturday, that’s for sure, and we will then have just over a week to work into the new season. So places are up for grabs, there’s no doubt about that.”
