"Outstanding fit" - Conor Chaplin claim made in Portsmouth FC player return debate | OneFootball

We asked our Pompey fan pundit for one ex-player that he would love to see playing for the club right now

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more...

Ipswich Town forward Conor Chaplin has been identified as the ideal ex-Portsmouth player to bring back into John Mousinho's current Championship squad.

Chaplin currently plies his trade in the Premier League with the Tractor Boys after helping them to promotion last season but started out with Pompey after joining their academy at the age of six.

He made his professional debut for Portsmouth back in December 2014, while the club was still in League Two, and soon broke into the senior side for good as he helped his boyhood club win promotion back to the third tier in 2017 as champions and was highly regarded as a player to keep an eye on for the future.

The Worthing-born forward left Pompey for good in January 2019 to join Coventry City, after a loan spell with the Sky Blues, and his career has kicked on to impressive effect in the years since, with outstanding seasons at Barnsley and Ipswich on the way to becoming a top-flight player for the first time in his career this year.

Portsmouth fan pundit issues Conor Chaplin claim

Chaplin has won two promotions with the Tractor Boys in the last two seasons, and while he is playing a more bit-part role in the top flight under Kieran McKenna right now, he has been a key man in League One and the Championship in years gone by.

The 27-year-old bagged 26 goals in 45 third-tier outings as he picked up the League One Golden Boot and the club and league's Player of the Year award for the 2022/23 season, while he netted a further 13 in 44 games last term to help fire McKenna's side to the top-flight.

Portsmouth enjoyed their own promotion last season under John Mousinho, from League One to the Championship, but have struggled in the second tier so far and currently sit in the relegation zone as one of the lowest scorers in the league to date.

Mousinho has experienced some real striker issues in recent months, with Colby Bishop sidelined, and the likes of Kusini Yengi, Mark O'Mahony and Christian Saydee all struggling to find the back of the net.

With that in mind, our Pompey fan pundit, Miltos Ioannidis, picked out Chaplin when we asked him for a former player that he would bring back to the current Portsmouth squad.

He said: “My pick would be Conor Chaplin.

“It all comes down to our clear inability to be effective in front of goal, and to the lack of quality as well.

“We have very few players that can create things out of nothing, which creates a void in the team that I think a player like Chaplin would solve immediately.

“At the moment we have players like Callum Lang, who can carry the team, or Josh Murphy, who can create a moment of brilliance even on an off day.

“But, we don’t have an abundance of players like those two. There are a lot of players who can’t do that.

“I think Conor Chaplin would be an outstanding fit for this current Portsmouth team.”

Chaplin could be open to a Pompey return in the future

Chaplin was Pompey through-and-through as a youngster, and despite making over 122 appearances for the club between 2014 and 2018, his lack of game-time meant that he left to join Coventry to bring his 15-year association with the club to an end, which he explained further in an excerpt from 2020 book 'Pompey: The Island City With A Football Club For A Heart', via Portsmouth News.

He said: "Pompey is my club, I have always been there. At school I was 'Conor who plays for Pompey', it’s the club where I spent 80 percent of my life, which is frightening when you think about it.

"The worst thing in the world was leaving, but it was a decision I had to make and don’t regret it.

"Kenny (Jackett) wanted me to stay, he tried everything he could to get me to remain, but the decision I made was solely for my career.

"I needed to leave and play football. I’d speak to friends and family to express my worries, I was so scared of ending up being one of those kids with such big potential yet never fulfilling it.

"Pompey is an unbelievable club, an absolutely unbelievable club. I would rather have continued there, but that wasn’t to be. There are no regrets about leaving, it has turned out to be the right decision."

While he may have no regrets over leaving Portsmouth, and certainly must feel pleased with the way his career has panned out, an eventual return can surely not be ruled out in the future given his clear affection for his boyhood club.

At 27, he is unlikely to continue on in the Premier League for years to come, and so Portsmouth could very conceivably become a realistic move for him as time goes on, especially if they establish themselves in the Championship over the coming seasons.