Summer misery continues as Portsmouth starlet denied cherished Carabao Cup reunion at West Ham
As a second-year scholar, the highly-rated youngster featured twice for the Blues’ first-team last season, scoring once
At the age of 17 years and 10 months, he announced his Pompey first-team arrival in style, producing a remarkable goal-scoring debut.
Now, 12 months later, the highly-regarded Tayo Singerr will be a noticeable absence from the Blues’ return to Carabao Cup action at West Ham.
Having sustained a hamstring injury on loan at Gosport in April, the striker has still to return to training for John Mousinho’s men to cruelly halt his flying progress.
Singerr sprang to prominence among the Fratton faithful when was introduced off the bench against Reading in August 2025 - and headed home Adrian Segecic’s cross in the 90th minute.
Nonetheless, it was the perfect introduction to senior football for the second-year scholar, who, within six months, had also made his Football League bow and earned a first-year professional deal.
Missed Pompey’s pre-season
However, with the 18-year-old’s rehabilitation continuing, he has yet to be involved in full training this summer, while missing the entirety of the friendly programme.
Indeed, fellow first-year pros Michael Ani, Nathaniel Chioma and Chinedu Agu were all involved in pre-season fixtures up until and including Bristol Rovers.
Yet the player who has preceded them, already featuring and scoring for Pompey in first-team competitive football, continues to occupy the sidelines.
Mousinho told The News: ‘Tayo has got back into the very, very light parts of training, a bit of ball work.
‘He’s doing a lot of work with the end-stage rehab, but he’s not training yet. I suspect that Tayo will be back in full training in about 2-3 weeks time.
‘Once we get him back in full training and get him fit, there will be plenty of takers to take him on loan.’
Interest from Farnborough and Torquay
Certainly a number of non-league clubs are keen to recruit Singerr on loan following a prolific spell at Moneyfields last term - then a March switch to Gosport which was cut short by injury.
Among them are National League South pair Farnborough, who faced a youthful Pompey side last week in a 1-1 draw, and Torquay.
In the first half of last season, Singerr plundered 14 goals in 18 appearances for Isthmian League South Central Division club Moneyfields during an impressive loan.
He returned to Fratton Park in December, with the striking catapulted from playing in front of 292 people into a league debut watched by a 24,649 crowd at Ashton Gate on New Year’s Day.
To date, that 16-minute cameo off the bench represents the attacker’s first and last Football League outing, spending the end of the 2025-26 campaign on loan at Gosport.
Now he’s back at Pompey but, for the moment, Singerr remains out of contention - in terms of training as well as another memorable Carabao Cup outing.
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