Cowleys set to keep their jobs

PORTSMOUTH are keen to give Danny and Nicky Cowley new long-term deals despite the club narrowly missing out on the League One play-offs.

Local paper The News report Pompey want a ‘swift finalisation’ over the brothers’ future and that they hope to get everything tied up within the next 48 hours.

Portsmouth were top of the table at Christmas but suffered a steep decline under former boss Kenny Jackett in the second half of the season before the Cowleys arrived in March to take them back to the verge of the play-offs.

But a 1-0 defeat at home to Accrington Stanley on the final day of the season meant they lost their place to Oxford United, with Charlton Athletic also going ahead of Portsmouth in the table but missing out on the play-offs on goal difference.

The News further report that the Cowleys wish to crack on with a huge squad rebuild and have ‘already lined up a number of targets’.

It will be interesting to see whether they call upon any of their former charges from their time at Huddersfield Town, who have 15 players set to go out of contract this summer.

At least a few of those are expected to be retained for the new season but left-back Jaden Brown has seemingly announced he will be one of the players heading for the exit after posting a valedictory message on to

Instagram on Saturday evening.

Danny Cowley was

Town manager for most of the 2019/20 season after arriving as Jan Siewert’s replacement in September 2019.

The club were bottom of the table with just one point from their first six games when the Cowleys arrived, but they quickly turned around the club’s fortunes and led them to an unprecedented rise out of the drop zone.