Portsmouth in no rush to clear out fringe players on January deadline day

Time is ticking for those who are out-of-favour to drive their departure, with January’s transfer window today shutting at 11pm.

The likes of Brett Pitman, Oli Hawkins, Paul Downing and Brandon Haunstrup were omitted from the Blues’ squad for Tuesday evening’s 2-0 victory at Lincoln.

Certainly Pitman and Downing are not in Jackett’s plans, while Hawkins and Haunstrup are out of contract in the summer.

Pompey are seeking a loan destination for Adam May to aid his development.

Yet Jackett insists he does not want to weaken promotion ambition – and won’t be forced into relinquishing other members of his first-team squad.

He said: ‘Whether it will be Brett or anybody, letting people go for the sake of it is not going to be something I am going to do.

‘We want to be as strong as possible for the upcoming months.

‘I will deal with everything on its merits, such as if there’s a terrific deal for the player and the club, but I am in no rush to let people go necessarily – and that is the case with Brett.

‘In terms of am I looking to shoehorn anybody out? No, not necessarily, because we would want to be as strong as possible and you just never know with injuries how things change.

‘It does look a quiet one at the moment. Similarly, if somebody comes in for any of our players, we are not looking to push anybody out to bring somebody in.’

Pompey welcomed two players on deadline day last January – James Vaughan and Viv Solomon-Otabor.

In the case of Solomon-Otabor, it was a late development, having pursued the left-winger earlier in the window.

Presently, the Blues have recruited Steve Seddon, Cameron McGeehan and Reeco Hackett-Fairchild during the current window.

But, at this time, Jackett is not anticipating any other deals.

He said: ‘We were chasing Solomon-Otabor, but that did come very late in that particular deal.

‘I don’t see any of these right now. We will keep going with what we have and see if the phone rings.’