Pompey’s defensive injury woes continued in a 2-1 defeat to Oldham.
They were robbed of one central option when Christian Burgess suffered a calf injury in training to join Jack Whatmough on the sidelines.
And so it was a huge blow for Kenny Jackett to see Nathan Thompson stretchered off with concussion following an accidental collision with Drew Talbot.
It left Matt Clarke as the only available central defender, with first Talbot and then striker Oliver Hawkins partnering him.
Blues boss Jackett said: “Nathan seemed to be spark out and it’s never nice to see players stretchered off. Hopefully he can recover quickly.
“Oli had played in defence once or twice with Dagenham and he gave us some presence, showing a very good attitude to change positions.
"The first goal went to them and we just seemed to lose a bit of confidence in defence after that."
“It looks like Christian will now be out for a couple of weeks with his calf problem and we all know about Jack’s injury.
“Nathan’s now out as well and Damien McCrory needs an operation next week on some damaged cartilage which could see him out for four to six weeks, so we are short on defenders.”
It was a disappointing performance from Pompey at Fratton Park, with Eoin Doyle netting a brace against his former club before Brett Pitman grabbed a late consolation.
Jackett said: “Oldham are quite direct and we can’t handle them, while we didn’t do enough in midfield.
“It could have gone either way after the first 15 or 20 minutes because both sides had chances and looked capable of scoring.
“But the first goal went to them and we just seemed to lose a bit of confidence in defence after that.
“We battled back in the second half and got the goal back from Brett, although ultimately it wasn’t enough.
“We did get into very good crossing positions at times and should probably should have done more with that.”