PAUL Jewell has revealed he might look to sign Portsmouth’s Joel Ward in the summer after being thwarted due to the South Coast club’s relegation battle.

Portsmouth beat Birmingham 4-1 on Tuesday night to keep their hopes of staying up alive – they are five points off survival with nine games left to play.

And Jewell believes those three points convinced Ward to stay and fight for his hometown club – as well as Pompey to keep the remainder of their threadbare squad for the rest of the season.

But don’t be too surprised if Ward, and team mate Jason Pearce, are not high on the list of Jewell’s transfer targets in the summer.

The manager said: “We spoke with Joel on Sunday and the agent said that if Portsmouth got a result on Tuesday, they would probably keep the squad in the hope of getting out of trouble. That is something we might look at long-term for next season.”

Jewell, who also revealed that he received no calls for any of his fringe players before yesterday’s ‘emergency’ deadline, praised his current squad for convincing him that he didn’t have to go crazy in the loan market.

He said:” If we were struggling, we would have made signings – there is no doubt about that. But luckily enough we have picked up and we are not going to get embroiled in a relegation fight.

“The lads who are in the team, and the squad, have done exceptionally well and at the moment I don’t see the need to bring in a couple of players for short-term. We are always looking in the long-term though.”