It might be the end of December but it will seem like the end of July to Pompey's squad over the next couple of weeks.

A lack of first-team games on New Year's Day and on Saturday has seen Andy Awford pledge to give the players a mini pre-season in training to try to drill - or re-drill - a few ideas into the squad about how he wants them to perform.

Pompey's next game is at Newport County on Saturday week - January 10 - by which time there may have been a few transfer window ins and outs.

But for now Awford is planning to work the squad hard.

He told The News: 'It’ll be a mini pre-season. We’ll probably have a 11 v 11 game at the training ground on Friday. With the amount of players we’ve got at the moment there will probably be enough for a round-robin tournament!

‘There’s an opportunity for us, and we’ll make the most of it. We can reinforce some ideas and what we want to do. We have that added time to be able to do that.’

Meanwhile Pompey have offered new deals to Adam Webster and Dan Butler. The full-backs are both out of contract in the summer.

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