Guy - Gekas will get his chance

Pompey goalscoring legend, and current Pompey coach, Guy Whittingham has said that Theo Gekas will get his chance in the 1st team at Fratton before the season is out - and predicts that he will do the business.

Since his arrival Theo has been an unused sub twice, he was stripped and ready to come on along with Kanu when we were 2-1 up against Liverpool but this was shelved as soon as the scousers equalised. He was then named on the bench against Citeh, but again failed to get on. He did not even make the bench last weekend against Stoke, which left many thinking 'maybe he is not up to it after all' as why would he have not even made the 7 man bench?

Clearly with Pompey fighting for their lives you have to play to your strengths and the belief from Whittingham is that the current system being deployed, which often sees Dave Nugent pushed out either wide left or right, would not suit the Greek striker as he is very much in the 'goal hanger' mould - not that he would not work hard for the team of course, as he would, he would have to!

After a spate of goals, which might have dried up in the last few games for Nugent, it would still be unjust to 'drop' him at this juncture as his work ethic does offer us so much and his confidence is growing all the time. I know that Peter Crouch is struggling a little, but he is still a quality player that just needs a goal, and he will not get that from sitting on the bench. As much as no one should be 'assured of a place in the team', some clearly are, and he is very much one of them...

It is thought that Theo and Nugent could not really play together, well not at this point in time anyway, so it looks like it is one or the other - and for me I say stick as we are, but hopefully we start seeing a bit of him, starting from the bench then who knows, in the coming months so we can see just what he can do.

'When', and I say when and not 'if', we are near on safe that is when we can afford to experiment a little more, but at the moment it has to be very much 'back to basics' and very much 'playing to our strengths'. He will get a chance, after all patience is a virtue...

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