The Football League have been sympathetic to Oxford United and granted the second division's basement club permission to de-register Guy Whittingham to enable them to sign a second player on loan, writes Jon Murray.

Whittingham, who had played just one match for United, returned to Pompey yesterday when he got the call from caretaker manager Steve Claridge to be his assistant at Fratton Park following the club's decision to grant boss Tony Pulis four months' leave of absence.

It was a body blow to United, who thought they had at last got a player capable of scoring goals on a regular basis.

Under Football League regulations, clubs are not allowed to field more than two loan players at any one time, and United already have Leon Mike from Manchester City. However, although Whittingham was officially registered as an Oxford United player for a further three weeks, the League have allowed Oxford, Portsmouth and Whittingham himself to enter a 'tripartite' agreement which ends his temporary contract at the Manor.

United secretary Mick Brown confirmed: "They have said we can have a tripartite agreement between the two clubs and the player to de-register him. It now gives us that opportunity to get a second player in on loan should we want to."

Brown added: "When this first happened we thought we would have to accept it, but there apparently have been precedents. Indeed, supporters may remember a similar thing with David Rush where his loan (at Peterborough) was ended because we wanted to sign him."

Meanwhile,the United strikers discarded last week have been told to get their act together following Whittingham's shock departure and show that they too can score goals. "Guy going back means there's now an opportunity for somebody else," said adviser Denis Smith. "We had a few strikers playing for the reserves on Wednesday and a few people would have had their noses kicked in a bit when Guy came in.

"This is their chance to go out and show what they can do, and maybe show that they shouldn't have been the one dropped."

Mike, Steve Anthrobus, Jamie Cook and Manny Omoyinmi all played for the reserves in their 1-0 win at Cheltenham Res and one of these four seems likely to partner Derek Lilley, who gave an impressive performance at the County Ground.

Defender Jon Richardson has been having treatment on a knock, but is expected to play against Wrexham at Swindon on Sunday.

Dean Whitehead will be available tomorrow, but he faces a suspension from October 22 after collecting his fifth booking of the season at Swindon.