Portsmouth manager Danny Cowley has suggested that Paul Cook must be finding it difficult to find his best possible line-up after Ipswich Town brought in some quality signings in the summer window.

It has not been the flying start to the campaign that Ipswich would have been hoping for after their significant investment in the summer transfer window on players who are arguably too good to be operating at League One level.

However, despite those new arrivals, Ipswich have managed to secure just three wins from their opening 12 league games. That has left them in 15^th place in the table, but they are now just one behind Portsmouth heading into their clash tonight.

The Tractor Boys have been showing signs of improvement in recent matches with them managing to claim two wins and a draw in their last four League One games. That shows that they could yet be able to put a run together and climb up to where they should be this term.

Speaking to Hampshire Live ahead of Portsmouth’s clash with Ipswich, Cowley suggested that Ipswich maybe should have one or two more points on the board than they have at this point.

While he also praised their recruitment and he believes Cook will be finding it hard to find his best possible starting line-up.

He said: “I think you have only got to look at Ipswich and how aggressive they were with their recruitment in terms of the players they signed.

“I think they have players well beyond this level, players that you would never anticipate being available to League One clubs. Strength and depth in every area. It must hard in training for Paul [Cook] to pick two teams, let alone one team with the depth he has got.

“It just proves how tough this league is this year because they haven’t had it all their own way to this point. We have had a good opportunity to watch quite a lot of their games and certainly, I think Paul would be quite right and fair to say that the team has deserved more points than they have accumulated, certainly their performances have.

“I watched them live against Shrewsbury last Saturday and they were worthy winners in that game. They had really good control in the Cambridge game where they were unable to turn that into a victory and there’s quite a few other games where they could’ve certainly picked up more points than they have. That is the nature of what is a very tough and competitive division.”

The verdict

Cowley’s comments here appear to be very fair and really do sum up Ipswich’s situation at the moment. There is no doubt that they have shown a lot of ambition as a football club under their new owners with their summer spending, but perhaps they have brought in to many new faces all at once.

That has been showing in their start to the season and Cook is having to gel together a lot of different parts of his squad. There are a few signs more recently though that he is beginning to identify his best side or as close to that as possible.

As a result, Portsmouth are going to have to deliver a much-improved performance from the one they produced at Rotherham United on Saturday if they are to have any chance of taking a positive result from this game.

Cook will be hoping his side can continue their recent upturn by defeating Portsmouth and that is a win that could take them into the top half depending on other results if it happens.