Poyet wants to see more of duo (From The Argus)

Poyet wants to see more of duo

5:00pm Wednesday 25th July 2012 in Albion By Brian Owen

Will Hoskins in action against Portsmouth. Picture by Paul Hazlewood

Gus Poyet has hailed the return to fitness of two of his sidelined stars.

Will Hoskins scored the opener in a 5-1 friendly win over depleted Portsmouth in Spain yesterday while Tommy Elphick played more than an hour.

Now the Albion boss hopes to see more of two men whose 2011-12 campaigns were ruined by injury.

Hoskins has yet to play a full match for the Seagulls since his big money move from Bristol Rovers.

Albion fans would love to see him produce the form which tempted Poyet to splash out a reported £500,000 for his services last summer.

Meanwhile, Elphick missed all last season with a ruptured Achilles.

Poyet said: “Will has started well. He played 70 minutes which is good because he has been out for a while as well.

“He is another player we were looking to play as long as we could.

“At the end, because of how the game was, we thought it was good to give some players 20 minutes to go on the pitch.”

Hoskins’ injury worries continued when he went to Sheffield United last term but Poyet said: “We never had a problem with Will. He wanted go to on loan.

“Last pre-season he was most of the time fit so we will see. We will take it day by day.

“Tommy is getting better slowly. It is going to take time as you can imagine because he has been out for so long. But he had an hour and everything is fine. At the moment there is no reaction.”

Pompey’s mix of trialists and teenagers offered only token opposition but Poyet said: “I’m pleased.

“It was a good game for us in that there were players who played 90 minutes, four or five had 70 and a couple had 60.

“It was good to keep improving the fitness and the match fitness.”

Vicente starred with three assists and long-range goal while Matt Sparrow, Romain Vincelot and Torbjorn Agdestein were also on target.

Craig Mackail-Smith, Wayne Bridge and Marcos Painter missed the game through injury.

Poyet said: “It’s nothing long term. We are dealing with them daily, they are improving daily. We will see when they are ready.”

The Albion boss remains optimistic he can make at least one of his priority signings in the next few days.

Poyet is after a striker and a powerful midfielder and that process continues while he is in Spain.

However, he has played down reports suggesting he had completed a deal to add Le Havre midfield prospect Jeremy Balmy to the development squad.

The 18-year-old from the Paris suburbs has turned down the offer of a new deal in Normandy.

He is keen to follow in the footsteps of Charles N’Zogbia and Paul Pogba, both of whom moved from Le Havre to England early in their career.

Albion would have to pay compensation for the little midfielder, who broke into the French fourth tier with Le Havre’s second team last season.

Albion’s development squad go to Eastbourne United for a friendly tonight (7.45pm).