Danny Cowley is confident Pompey can finally return to action on Monday after three weeks kicking their heels.

He believes the Blues camp is generally healthy and fit and there is no reason to think the visit to Cambridge United should be called off.

The Blues have not played since the win over Morecambe since December 11. Four games have been called off since then - three because of Pompey Covid cases, one because of positive tests at Plymouth.

Cowley told The News: 'We’re just hopeful that the game will go ahead. We’ve had good lines of communication between the two clubs and I think both us and Cambridge are in a similar situation where we had it quite early and are now through the worst of it.

‘Nicky (Cowley) met up with Mark Bonner actually at Ipswich’s game with Wycombe on Tuesday. They had a sort of informal conversation which led us to believe (it could go ahead).

‘We’re both confident that, all being well, we’ll be able to play on Monday and we’re certainly hoping so because we’ve missed football.'

Cowley said of the postponement of the trip to Plymouth: ‘We were super frustrated for everybody, really . We had obviously prepared well and been up to Cheltenham (v Plymouth) on Boxing Day. We had a good three days leading up to the game.

‘We were an hour into our coach journey to Plymouth when we had a phone call from Andy Cullen telling us to turn around. It was no fault of Plymouth, these things happen. We’d like to wish all the players and staff at Plymouth that have picked Covid up well.’

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