Blues ‘falling apart’ due to injuries and illness

POMPEY boss Danny

Cowley admitted his squad is ‘falling apart’ after yet more setbacks.

A hamstring injury kept Lee Brown out of Blues duty for last night’s goalless draw with Sheffield Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Michael Jacobs is the latest to be sidelined by the sickness bug which has swept through the Pompey dressing room, joining Joe Morrell.

Last week, Louis

Thompson picked up a hip problem to rule him out for up to four weeks.

As a consequence, academy trio Harry Jewitt-White, Harvey Hughes and Dan Gifford were named on the bench against the Owls.

Cowley told The News: ‘Michael came in on Monday and looked really rough, he wanted to train to try to flush it from the system.

‘Then he phoned me about 9am on Tuesday, he must have been up all night, he had a really high temperature and a high fever.

‘We tested them all for Covid and they have all come back negative, which is good.

‘We’ve even lost Dan Ashby, our analyst. He’s not been in for the last 7-8 days, so I couldn’t tell you if they were penalties or not against Sheffield Wednesday because I haven’t had the chance to look at them back.

‘That’s just been where we have been as a group, we are falling apart – but the ones we do have available really stepped up last night.’

Morrell, arguably

Pompey’s best midfielder, has now missed two matches.

The Blues are desperate for him to return to contention for this weekend’s visit of Morecambe. But, as it stands, Cowley is unable to pinpoint when Morrell’s illness will have passed.

Pompey’s head coach added: ‘With Joe we are not sure, it takes a lot for him to be unavailable.’