‘Spark’: How Portsmouth need to make most of key ‘missing’ Championship ingredient
The Santos arrival has shown his Pompey potential - with the need now to get the most out of the January recruit to boost Championship survival hopes.
Gustavo Caballero can bring a new spark to Pompey’s survival push.
And the Paraguayan's new right-sided partner has acknowledged the importance of his new team-mates, in helping the flying winger adjust to the demands of English football.
Caballero brings ‘spark’ Pompey have been ‘missing’
Caballero is now five games into his Fratton stay, since the Blues completed a leftfield January deal to bring in the 24-year-old on loan from Brazilian side Santos.
The move was one not too many fans would have seen coming, before talk began to surface ahead of the deadline day capture of the under-21 international.
The move from South America is evidently going to bring cultural adjustments for the former Nacional Asuncion man, as he adapts to life at PO4.
The early signs are promising, however, as Caballero links up with Terry Devlin down the right flank in a partnership full of direct running.
The new boy followed up his debut at Preston with a promising showing at Charlton Athletic, as he put the cross in for Colby Bishop’s penalty in the 3-1 success. There was then an outstanding maiden goal in the 3-1 win at Millwall, with Caballero’s display earning him a place in the Championship team of the week.
A difficult evening ensued at Wrexham, as the man from San Lorenzo was withdrawn at the break with John Mousinho pointing to his challenges over following instructions out of possession. There was a clear awareness of those demands, however, when Caballero came on for the final 30 minutes of Saturday’s clash with Hull City.
Devlin is excited by what he’s seen of his new team-mate so far, with Caballero bringing missing ingredients to the Pompey squad. The Northern Ireland man feels the Blues players all have to take the steps to help their new team-mate bed in at his new home, however
Devlin said: ‘Gus has been really good.
‘He’s a really good player, you can definitely see that he has that quality.
‘We’ll help him settle in so that we can see the best of him moving forward.
‘You can see he has that wee bit of spark in his games so far, that’s something we’ve been missing.
‘He gets his head down and gets at defenders, it’s really important we have players who do that.
‘It’s not necessarily easy coming over from a different country, so as a group of lads we’ll do everything we can to help him to settle.
‘Some of the lads like Jacob Brown speak a little bit of Spanish, so that helps him a lot.
‘It’s just really important for us as a group to keep integrating him and help him adjust to our culture and what we do as a team.’
Positive news over permanent Caballero deal confirmed
The good news for Pompey is Caballero will be their man this summer, if they choose to take up an option to buy their new recruit on a permanent basis.
Sporting director Rich Hughes has confirmed that option includes buying Caballero for a ‘realistic’ fee.
He said: ‘I think it’s good business to be in a position that, if he does well, we have the opportunity to take him on a permanent deal. That was a big part of the conversation.
‘We are in a good spot with him. If he does well, we have that protection to be able to bring him into the football club, which is a nice situation to be in.
‘Hopefully if we are in that conversation in the summer where we’re talking about triggering the option, it probably shows he has done really well and we have been quite successful over the back end of the season. So it's a good position for the football club to be in.
‘The (agreed) fee is absolutely realistic, we wouldn’t have put it in there if it wasn’t.
‘It was negotiated as part of the loan deal that, if things went well and everyone felt it was the right thing to do, then we’ve got that opportunity to exercise the option. So we are pleased with it.’