New Portsmouth manager John Mousinho has confirmed that he wants to keep Blues striker Joe Pigott at Fratton Park for the rest of the season.
Pigott joined Pompey on a season-loan in the summer but since then has made only 10 starts - five in the league - and 15 sub appearances, scoring five times.
Portsmouth insisted there was no provision for Town to recall the former 29-year-old in January when the deal was done in the summer.
However, a month ago, prior to the sacking of former boss Danny Cowley, the former AFC Wimbledon man had expressed his frustration and said that a conversation regarding his situation might take place if he continued to remain on the fringes.
But Mousinho, who took over at the end of last week, says he wants Pigott, who came on as a sub and scored the final goal in last night’s 2-0 win at Fleetwood, says he’s keen to keep the frontman among his options.
"It’s probably difficult for Joe and Dane to come in with the formation switch to a 4-3-3 where you've got that one centre forward,” Mousinho told the Portsmouth News.
"If you are playing with two centre forwards every week then you need four in the building. If you are playing one you need three — which is what we have now.
"I have played against all three of them and know they are good players, so we’ll work out how they fit into the squad for the rest of the season because they are here and they are good players.
"I want to keep Joe here for the rest of the season too. They can fit into the attacking three, depending on how we play it. You can definitely play with two centre-forwards, you just have to make sure that’s balanced with the rest of the team.
"Say you want to play someone narrow off the right. With Zak [Swanson] that might be quite natural because he can keep going and getting up the right-hand side. It’s just figuring that out.
"I’m not into shoehorning people into the wrong positions just for the sake of it, I’m quite a big believer in making sure you have the right people fitting into the right positions.
"Sometimes there’ll definitely be scope to play around with that and change it, we’ll just have to see how it unfolds.”
Maidstone-born Pigott is contracted to the Blues until the summer of 2024.