Portsmouth head coach John Mousinho has ruled his side out of the running for former Leeds United defender Liam Cooper who is currently still without a club, according to the latest reports.
Pompey faced off against the Whites on Saturday afternoon and played out a thrilling 3-3 draw at Elland Road. The newly-promoted side took the lead on two separate occasions, including from the spot in stoppage time, but still couldn’t see out the victory as Brenden Aaronson equalised in the game’s dying embers to rescue a point for the hosts.
It was a brave showing by Mousinho’s men against one of the favourites to earn promotion to the Premier League. New signing Elias Sorensen cancelled out Pascal Struijk’s opening goal before Callum Lang unleashed a rocket past Ilian Meslier to fire the visitors into the lead heading into the interval.
Unfortunately, this lead lasted less than a minute into the second half as Wilfried Gnonto equalised for Leeds and it looked as though the shares were going to be spoiled which would have been a superb opening-day result for Portsmouth. That was until Lang scored a penalty in the 92nd minute to snatch the three points but Aaronson delivered a sucker punch just before the final whistle to settle the score.
While the club on the south coast were impressive and incredibly efficient going forward, having bagged three goals from an xG of merely 0.94, Mousinho’s side were quite permeable at the back. In fact, the West Yorkshire outfit recorded 3.39 from 22 shots on Will Norris’ goal, as per FotMob.
As a result, Portsmouth are keen to bolster their backline before the transfer window closes. On Sunday, TEAMtalk revealed that the club are interested in making a move for centre-back Cooper who has been without a club since the beginning of July but still has a renewal offer on the table from Leeds United.
Speaking ahead of Pompey’s EFL Cup clash at home to Millwall tomorrow night, head coach Mousinho stated that there is no truth in this transfer rumour, although he did admit that the side are looking to add some defensive prowess to his squad [quotes via The News]:
“There’s nothing in that,” he said.
“Liam is a fantastic player with massive Premier League pedigree, but, as far as we are concerned, that’s not one we have been looking at at all.”
“We haven’t missed out on (signing) any centre-halves, it’s just the ones we are looking at haven’t become available yet,” he continued.
“We’ve got plenty we are still in discussion with towards the back end, but it has been really slow with the way the market has gone.
“There are plenty of options we have from teams who are just not ready to release players yet – whether that’s on loan or whether that’s permanently – and a lot of that will come to fruition at the back end of August.”
Writer’s View
It seems from Mousinho’s comments that Portsmouth will sign at least one centre-back or potentially even two before the transfer window closes but Cooper won’t be one of them, having recently also been linked with a move to fellow Championship side Blackburn Rovers.
While the Scotland international seems to be keen to earn a move to a club where he will receive regular game-time, perhaps he is better off staying at Leeds United for at least one more season as there are seemingly no other offers for his services now that Mousinho has denied any interest.
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