Portsmouth attacker's contract decision held up as agonising wait goes on

Koby Mottoh’s Pompey future remains up in the air.

The promising youngster is hoping to convince the Blues he is worthy of a new deal after graduating from the Academy.

Mottoh, who has featured five times this season, had been offered two weeks of training time with the first-team to impress John Mousinho.

However, that plan was put on hold with the right-sided winger required for the under-18s’ Youth Alliance Cup final against Preston at Fratton Park last Wednesday.

In addition, Mousinho is now up to 24 players for training sessions, following the return of a number of injured players in recent weeks, including Callum Lang and Tom Lowery.

It means Mottoh’s Pompey fate has now been put back towards the end of the season.

Mousinho told The News: ‘We haven’t done anything with Koby yet, we wanted to get the cup final out of the way.

‘He hasn’t been with the first team recently because we wanted him to focus on the cup final and get back with the youth-team, while we also have 24 pros training at the moment.

‘We didn’t want to make a decision or do anything with the lads before last Wednesday. It was a brilliant occasion for them to play at Fratton in a cup final, that’s the most important thing.

‘After that we were fully focused with Bolton, so now we’ll need to sit down with the Academy and Koby and think about what we’re going to do.

‘There’s no rush on that at the moment, we’ve still got a bit of time - we’ll come to a decision before the end of the season.’

Sam Hudson’s Academy side suffered a 3-1 defeat to Preston in their cup final in front of a 904 crowd.

Watched by Mousinho, Mottoh laid on Harry Clout’s goal, which proved to be nothing more than a consolation on a disappointing night.

Pompey’s starting XI included eight second-year scholars who are scheduled to leave at the season’s end following graduation.

They are Malachi Osei-Owusu, Brian Quarm, Kevin Bosaka, Jack Fox, Harvey Laidlaw, Dan Murray, Mitch Aston and Maxwell Hurst.

Mousinho added: ‘Preston are a decent-enough side and have quite a few lads up with the first-team this year.

‘I thought we were slightly unlucky, but lax defending in the first half and a couple of mistakes led to their goals. Although we had some really good chances, with Koby obviously setting up ours.

‘Harry Clout was really lively on the left-hand side, which was a real positive being a second-year pro next year, so I think there’s plenty to be excited about.

‘For a lot of those lads who had already been released, it was a really nice occasion for them to play at Fratton and compete in a cup final.’