Paul Cook has indicated he wants to have less reliance on loan players in the Pompey side next season.

The boss admits it is generally always better to sign players on permanent deals - while accepting that the loan market is part and parcel of the game.

Last season a succession of loan deals bolstered the Pompey squad - some successfully, some not.

Cook told The News: ‘I don’t like loans. I just want our own players, I want our own identity as a club. We have had so many young players coming through lately and need to go into the market and invest in the right age group of players and the right work ethic in players, all these balances.

‘You are always looking at the loan market, that is the reality of it, but you are only helping the parent club. One of the reasons you bring loans in is because they make you better. If the squad was good enough you wouldn’t be in the loan market.

‘Take Ben Davies, for example. We’ve had no right-back cover all year so had no choice but to bring Kieron Freeman in. But I am not a great advocate of the loan market — I would rather have our own players, I would rather have Adam May on the bench than someone else.

‘In the second leg against Plymouth I left Conor Wilkinson off the bench. Conor Chaplin has been with us all season, you look at his goals, so I was trying to stick with my own players at that point. I have to give them the feeling they trust me as well.

‘The thing is, with loans it is clubs wanting to use you to develop their players. That’s okay, I wanted to use Gosport when we sent Adam May there to develop, you are always trying to get everything right. The important thing for us is we sign players we need.’

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