Portsmouth boss reveals plan over unleashing new striker partnership on Sheffield Wednesday, Ipswich Town, Derby County, Charlton Athletic & Co this season

The Blues boss paired new £500,000 arrival Colby Bishop with Joe Pigott for the first time in Saturday’s 2-0 reverse against Coventry City.

The duo lined up alongside each other in the second half of the final pre-season warm-up for the first team, ahead of the League One curtain-raiser at Sheffield Wednesday next weekend.

Cowley has opted to play a 4-4-2 formation over the latter part of pre-season, after largely playing with a 4-2-3-1 line-up in earlier warm-up games.

After bringing in two experienced forwards, the 43-year-old feels he’s now in a position to go down that route.

Cowley said: ‘We would like to get to two up top, that’s what we’d like to do.

‘We want to get as many goalscorers on the pitch as we can.

‘To do that and play with the extra attacking player, you need to get your attacking players to work very, very hard against the ball.

‘We have a really honest group of attacking players, so we think we can do that.

‘That will always be our ambition.’

Cowley highlighted how Pompey benefitted from playing with two strikers over the season’s finale, as they produced some powerful home form.

He acknowledged they may need to temper that approach at times on the road, but his intention will be to have two strikers on the pitch more often than not this term.

Cowley added: ‘In the last 10 games here we won eight and drew two playing with two up.

‘So it makes sense to try to get to that, certainly at Fratton Park.

‘Sometimes away from Fratton Park against certain opposition it’s different.

‘But for us always when we can we like to play with two forwards.’