Hughes confident Pompey will add players in January

Portsmouth sporting director Richard Hughes has said he is "confident" the club has the budget to sufficiently strengthen the squad in the January transfer window.

Pompey are 21st in the Championship table, one point above the relegation places with 22 matches remaining.

John Mousinho's squad has been stretched in recent weeks with injuries to key players Colby Bishop, Josh Murphy and Callum Lang.

Defender Hayden Matthews limped off in the 5-0 defeat at Bristol City on New Year's Day to join Marlon Pack, Mark Koznovsky, Connor Ogilvie, Josh Knight, Thomas Waddingham and Florian Bianchini on the sidelines.

Mousinho has stated a desire to add players in a number of areas with Pompey signing eight in the winter window 12 months ago.

"Every conversation we've had with the board has been really positive," Hughes told BBC Radio Solent. "They've always been willing to have the conversations about what needs to be done for the football club, specifically with transfers.

"We're confident we're going to be able to affect the group [in January], and again will be backed by the board to do so.

"We've started the back end of December being very proactive, talking to a lot of clubs and players, trying to work as diligently as we can and as sensibly as we can.

"We also want to try and get players in the door as early as possible to affect as many of the January games as we can."

Portsmouth have won just six of their 24 league matches, and Hughes admits they need to strengthen the squad, albeit in a window that presents far more challenges than in the summer.

"I think there's a lot of pressure," he added. "There's always a lot of pressure on every window. When you work for this great football club there's always a pressure to improve the group.

"We understand that everybody wants to see bodies come through the door. I think pressure can be a really good thing to keep everybody working to their absolute capacity and try and make the best decision for the club moving forward.

"January is tough. We spoke to one Premier league club that said player x won't be allowed out until their players have returned from Afcon. That's an added layer of complexity to be dealt with.

"We go into the FA Cup, and a lot of clubs will keep players in for that. None of these aspects and elements are excuses, they are all just things we have to be consciously aware of."

Pompey have a break from the league with the visit of Arsenal in the FA Cup third round on Sunday.

They then have four league matches - against Sheffield Wednesday, Watford, south coast rivals Southampton and West Bromwich Albion - inside 15 days.

"It's a big run of games so we want bodies through the door to try and affect it if we can," Hughes added.

"Are we going to give the promises that it'll be done? It's very difficult to give that, but we'll be working very hard to go as early as we can to bring in those players.

"I won't divulge the areas we're looking at, but it's always been a conversation between me, John [Mousinho] and Brad [Wall, head of recruitment] on what positions and profiles look best to help John play in the way he wants to play."

Hughes confirmed that talks have taken place with Ipswich and Tottenham over the prospect of either forward Conor Chaplin or winger Yang Min-hyeok being recalled.

"It's a fluid market," Hughes said. "We're working on an eventuality that if they do get recalled, we won't be taken by surprise, and we'll know where we would look to try and move to replace if that's the case."

Portsmouth made 11 new additions to their squad over the summer window but only Australia forward Adrian Segecic has truly established himself as reliable first-team player.

Koznovsky and Yang have shown promise, while Josef Bursik filled in admirably for first-choice goalkeeper Nicolas Schmid, but others have struggled to make a consistent impact.

"There were some pleasing things in there," Hughes said. "Some players have done well, some have now started to hit a rhythm, some haven't worked out.

"There's things that we'd go back and do differently if we knew what we know now, but sometimes you only find out the answer after the event. That's the difficulty of recruitment.

"We were happy with what we did at the time. We were probably expecting a little bit more from a few of the signings, but that's sometimes how it presents itself."