John Mousinho addresses Portsmouth summer recruitment plans - and the position needing urgent attention

It is now 10 games into the head coach’s encouraging start to life at Fratton Park, collecting five wins and totalling a League One tally of 17 points.

Joe Morrell, Ryan Tunnicliffe, Joe Rafferty and Ryley Towler, in particular, have been huge plus points during that period, with the team rising to 10th, yet clearly work must continue.

Mousinho acknowledges summer recruitment on the striker front is essential, with Dane Scarlett and Joe Pigott scheduled to return to their parent clubs.

Yet his desire to see all his squad in action means it’s still too early to declare which particular departments require bolstering.

Mousinho told The News: ‘I have a couple of ideas about it (summer recruitment). Naturally we have some contracts up and some loans going back, so those are easier and definite places requiring filling.

‘That picture becomes a bit clearer week on week, but still feels really early to make any massive assessment on that.

‘I’m getting a better idea of what I need for next season, but I still feel it’s a bit early to judge some of the players.

‘There are some I like who just haven't had a chance yet, so it’s too early to say whether I would like to keep that player or not in the summer, we are in the infancy of where we are going.

‘By the end of the season we will have a good idea of where we want to go, we will have conversions internally and then look at it. There are the places we need to fill, let’s go out and do that in May, June, July and August, that’s four months.

‘A lot of that is dictated by loans going back and a really good example is centre-forward, we are going to have one contracted centre-forward in the summer, so we need to look in the department.

‘That might mean we try to get the loans back or try to do something permanently. We definitely have one and need to do some business there.

‘There are a couple of positions where that’s the case as well.’

Thankfully for Mousinho, the Blues’ injury situation is easing at present.

Tom Lowery is the latest casualty to return, named on the bench against Bolton, and steadily his squad options are increasing.

He added: ‘I think we have the foundation for a good side, if we didn’t then we wouldn’t be able to pick up the results we’ve managed over the last few weeks.

‘Squad depth is something which has been pretty good since I’ve come in, the only game we’ve just filled the bench is Peterborough.

‘Apart from that, we’ve been leaving good players out of pretty much every squad, so we have cover in most positions.’