Blues boss biding time over move for Mason

DANNY COWLEY wants to assess Brandon Mason at close quarters before deciding whether to make him Pompey’s ninth summer signing.

The Coventry left-back this week arrived at Fratton Park on trial, featuring in Tuesday’s 3-3 draw at Bristol City.

According to Cowley, the 23-year-old is available either on a loan or permanent deal from the Championship club.

Certainly Coventry are keen to offload the out-offavour Mason this summer, following 46 appearances in three seasons.

But Cowley is adamant he wants a sustained look at the attacking full-back before potentially committing.

He told The News: ‘He did just fine against Bristol City.

‘He’s an athletic, overlapping full-back with good technical qualities, one that we’ve known for quite a while.

‘I think he’s frustrated because he’s been behind Sam McCallum, who got a big move to Norwich for X-amount of millions and then came back on loan. So he’s been in a queue.

‘For us, it’s an opportunity to take a look and, from there, we will try to make some intelligent decisions. And also for him to look at us, which is equally as important.

Mason was introduced in the 16th minute in the friendly at Bristol City’s training ground after Lee Brown took a knock to the left knee.

Cowley added: ‘The plan was for him (Mason) to come on at 60 minutes, but we had the choice of either letting our team go down to 10 men, which wasn’t the right thing to do.

‘So that was the reason we brought Brandon on. It then meant we had to make some tweaks with the second team which came on (on 60 minutes).’

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