Pompey are on the up, but a striker crisis is looming
Blues set to be without all three senior forwards for Rochdale
POMPEY have been plunged into a striker crisis – with Danny Cowley joking he’d be sending an SOS to his dad.
The Blues moved up to fifth in League One on Saturday following a 2-1 triumph at Shrewsbury.
In the process, John Marquis, who had bagged Pompey’s second goal, was shown a straight red card following a challenge on substitute Harry Chapman.
Cowley intends to appeal, yet the fear is the Blues’ leading scorer could be sidelined for three matches.
With Jordy Hiwula out for up to six weeks with an ankle injury and Ellis Harrison missing for the remainder of the season, there are no more senior strikers available.
And Pompey’s head coach must unearth a solution before the visit of Rochdale on Good Friday.
Cowley told The News : ‘My dad was a centre-forward, a really good centre-forward. He always says he never ran around.
‘He thinks I get the forwards running around too much, so I don’t think he’d run around as much as I would need him to!
‘He’s nearly 70 now, maybe his time has gone!
‘Jordy is out for 4-6 weeks. He did that in the game against Ipswich, but to be fair to him was carrying it before.
‘He put himself up to play because he knew where we were in the number nine position, but took another kick to it unfortunately.
‘John (Marquis) trained on Friday for the first time since his injury, but unfortunately was sent off against Shrewsbury.
‘We will appeal that, but he could be out of three games.
‘These are the cards we have been dealt, we’ll find a way of working around it.’
An option could be Alfie Stanley, who Cowley cast an eye over in training last week.
It has been an opportunity to assess the promising talents of the 19-year-old, who has made two first-team appearances this season.
The third-year scholar had a short spell on loan at Bognor earlier in the campaign, before facing West Ham under-21s and Cheltenham in the Papa John’s Trophy.
Now Stanley represents a squad option, although Ryan Williams, Marcus Harness and Ronan Curtis – upon his return from international duty – could also be pressed into central striking roles.
Cowley added: ‘Young Alfie has scored goals in training this week.
‘I said to him on Friday: “Alfie, how many goals have you scored in training this week?”.
‘He didn’t know. I told him the first rule of a centreforward is to count your goals. Absolutely!
‘We will look at all of our options.’