Andy Cullen's January transfer window admission as Portsmouth managerial search steps up

Irrespective of Danny Cowley’s departure, it will be business as usual for the Blues’ player hunt, with sporting director Rich Hughes continuing to oversee progress.

However, Andy Cullen has emphasised the importance of Pompey’s next boss also being handed an input while pursuing playing targets.

And while there will still be fresh arrivals during the January window, the Blues’ chief executive expects the process to be ‘slowed’.

Cullen told The News: ‘The key advantage of a sporting director is we are not just looking at this window but the window after and the window after that. We have already done work on the types of players we feel will add and improve us – and that work continues.

‘That dialogue will be maintained, we are keen to approach the board with the players we want, we also have some continuity in the building in terms of this interim structure.

‘However, it will be foolish to say looking for a new head coach will have no impact on (transfer) business.

‘It will impact it slightly because you obviously want to align the type of player to a particular manager, so it could mean we might not be as quick with a lot of players we want.

‘When we are speaking to individuals about the head coach role, we will be asking them about where they see the strengths and weaknesses of our squad and what they will want to do to improve it.

‘So I’d like to think the shortlist of people interested in our position would have an input in our player discussions.

‘It might slow the process up slightly, but we will work within that, we’ll continue the dialogue with those players, with those clubs and those agents.’

Pompey have drawn up contingency plans should they lose any of their five loan players through recalls by their parent club.

While they still have one more space in their capped 22-man squad, which doesn’t include goalkeepers and under-21 players.

He added: ‘I’m obviously cautious of the fact that we may have some players recalled, we don’t know yet and we may have to react to that as well.

‘The context of what we have at the moment is a squad cap of 22 players and, as things stand, we have one space. We would have to create room to bring in more players, so there’s that added factor we’re working against at the moment.

‘We are focused on bringing the right person and focused on improving the squad, they are the two most important things to this football club.’