Wanted: The missing ingredient to transform popular Portsmouth man into 'a real threat' in the Championship
Christian Saydee has been remodelled and repackaged this season, yet for John Mousinho the crucial ingredient continues to be missing.
Through necessity rather than preference, the former Bournemouth man has been restored to a centre-forward role since the Blues’ return to the Championship.
Starting six consecutive matches in the position during the absence of Colby Bishop and amid Kusini Yengi’s troublesome groin, Mousinho hailed the 22-year-old’s Middlesbrough display as his finest in a Pompey shirt.
Tellingly, that also consisted of two goals - representing the only time he has managed to score this season.
Still, he was back operating in the number 10 against Oxford United, starting there for the first time this season, with Elias Sorensen and Mark O’Mahony ahead in a changed 3-5-2 system.
And while Mousinho was impressed in a display which saw Saydee win an early penalty spurned by Sorensen, there was something again concerningly absent - goals.
Pompey’s head coach told The News: ‘He’s so hard to play against and always causes a huge amount of problems. If Christian can add goals to his game, he will be a real threat.
‘When the ball drops from those second balls he is very difficult to get it off. When the ball is played into him, it sticks and it’s very difficult to win the ball off him,
‘He makes things happen, that’s the best way to describe Christian, he works very, very hard.
‘In our last game against Oxford, he was up against Will Vaulks, a player who has plied his trade at this level for a large part of his career, and I thought Christian did really well. He gave him (Vaulks) a really tough game.
‘I’m really pleased with Chris, it’s just those final bits where he can get himself into the box to score more goals.’
It’s an understandable concern that Saydee has found the back of the net in just six of his 52 Pompey matches to date.
He scored more during one loan season at Shrewsbury in 2022-23, netting seven times in 38 outings under the management of Steve Cotterill, who rates the attacker highly.
In fairness, Saydee’s game possesses additional strengths to goalscoring, while more than half of his Pompey appearances (27) have come off the bench.
And while he may now find himself back as a number 10 - where he largely featured in Pompey’s League One title-winning season - the goal issue continues to hamper his overall effectiveness.