BOSS Tom Killick hopes Poole Town can play a part in putting Christian Oxlade-Chamberlain and Jez Bedford on the road to successful careers in the Football League.

Killick signed the pair on youth loans from Portsmouth on the eve of the start of the National South campaign before blooding them in Saturday’s 2-1 win at Weston-super-Mare.

Oxlade-Chamberlain, brother of England and Arsenal star Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, made an instant impact by netting Poole’s opener just minutes after coming off the bench.

Midfielder Bedford replaced Jack Dickson with 20 minutes remaining and impressed as Dolphins registered a hard-earned victory in Somerset.

Poole-born Bedford, 18, has yet to feature for Pompey at first-team level, while Oxlade-Chamberlain, 19, made a substitute appearance in a Football League Trophy tie at Exeter in September 2015.

The duo, who initially signed for a month, are in contention to feature when Poole host promoted Bognor Regis Town at the Black Gold Stadium tonight (7.45pm).

Poole will again be without talismanic frontman Luke Roberts who is awaiting a scan to determine the full extent of a knee injury sustained in a friendly against Weymouth.

Killick told the Daily Echo: “The league front-load the fixtures heavily and we have eight games in the first month. You need good numbers and we felt the injury to Luke left us a little short so we were grateful to Portsmouth for sanctioning the loans.

“Although Jez is a first-year pro, he lives in Poole and Nick Hutchings made me aware of him at the end of last season. We had been trying all through pre-season to bring him in.

“He is a very bright midfielder. He has a chance of having a good career in the game but probably just needs to get some experience of men’s football having just come out of the youth team.

“We were aware of Christian because he played against us on loan for Eastbourne last season. He is a powerful and quick attacking player and we felt he could do us a bit of good.

“As a second-year pro, Christian has a little more experience. Jez hasn’t played too much senior football but is technically a very good player and we are hoping they can both make an impact for us.

“Christian is trying to make his own way in the game and has quite a lot to live up to due to his brother’s stature. He will have ambitions to try to make a career for himself and, hopefully, we can help him and Jez on their way.”

Dolphins: (from) Hutchings, Lindsay, Spetch, Whisken, Smeeton, Devlin, Pettefer, Moore, Burbidge, Lee, Dickson, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Bedford, Balmer, Baggie, Rees.