Town boss Kieran McKenna says Portsmouth target Joe Pigott will, as things stand, be involved in Saturday’s friendly at AFC Wimbledon, despite not being in this evening’s squad, while Kyle Edwards has a minor injury.

Pompey are understood to be closing in on a season-long loan of Pigott and it was little surprise that the 28-year-old wasn’t involved against West Ham this evening.

McKenna says he is still part of the squad and was left out this evening to give other players a chance to get time on the pitch.

“Joe’s been training well, has been with us since the start of pre-season, has been training well, is part of the squad at the moment,” he said.

“He played in the first two friendly matches that we had and will likely be involved again on Saturday, just today we wanted to go with one up front in both halves as our system and we felt like we wanted and needed to get Freddie [Ladapo] the minutes and Kayden [Jackson] needed to get some minutes off the bench.

“There will be other times we will play in different ways and obviously we have two 90 minutes on Saturday so, as it stands, he’ll be involved in the game on Saturday.”

Edwards was the only other senior player absent but the winger is expected back for the Wimbledon trip.

“A small niggle, hopefully. He’s been training every day, played the first couple of bits of match action we’ve had but picked up a small thing over the weekend. Hopefully he’ll be back involved by the weekend all being well.”

Regarding further additions, he added: “The club are working very hard. I think [CEO] Mark Ashton spoke on it the other day [on Life's a Pitch], saying that it’s a stage of the season where there’s only so much you can do at times.

“The club are working really, really hard behind the scenes, which is all that they can do. We want to make sure that we’re getting the right ones that are going to improve us, so we’ll keep chipping away trying to do that.”

Photo: Matchday Images

Gforce added 22:09 - Jul 12 Hopefully a much needed 20 goal striker is on the way very soon 🙏
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Ipswichbusiness added 22:15 - Jul 12 If both Simpson and Pigott leave then we will be looking very short up front.
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Gforce added 22:16 - Jul 12 With regards to Pigott ,happy for him to go out on loan,but really don't think it should be to one of our rivals in Pompey.This could come back to bite us, send him to a lower league 1 team,then fair enough.
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churchmans added 22:57 - Jul 12 Gforce we are letting piggott go on loan not lewandowski ffs
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Essexnblue added 09:06 - Jul 13 Why are we worrying about a striker who managed 2 goals last season, look at the bigger picture if Portsmouth are chasing him, then we must be ahead of them in the race to sign Hirst who is 23 and does score goals.
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Bazza8564 added 09:37 - Jul 13 Cannot believe people are worried about letting him go, even to a rival. If hes on loan he cant play against us anyway. We need him gone, and if Simpson moves on, so what, the two of them offered us nothing last year, why waste the wages. We are one short in that position, but as things stand Piggot and Simpson offer us nothing but numbers, get them away and bring one more in. I would have added, plus a left back, but I was so impressed with Leigh last night and with Penney and perhaps Edwards as left wing backs, im less bothered about that now

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NITFC added 13:52 - Jul 13 If we are as good as we all hope we are, then Portsmouth won't be a rival because I can't see them pushing for promotion
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