John Mousinho has remained tight-lipped on the injury crisis that continues to hamper Portsmouth’s plans for Saturday’s crucial trip to relegation rivals Luton Town.
The Hatters will head into Saturday’s Kenilworth Road clash sat at the bottom of the Championship table and they lie five points from safety after failing to win any of their last 12 league fixtures. By contrast, Pompey head into the game looking for a fourth consecutive win after their bid for safety was boosted by taking maximum points from home games with Cardiff City and Queens Park Rangers and the away game at Oxford United.
However, Mousinho has several injury concerns ahead of Saturday’s game after the likes of Rob Atkinson, Isaac Hayden, Zak Swanson and Hayden Matthews were all struggling at different moments during last weekend’s win against QPR. Callum Lang, Ibane Bowat, Jacob Farrell and Paddy Lane are all expected to play no further part this season and Conor Shaughnessy and Jordan Williams are both working their way back from hamstring injuries. On-loan Brighton and Hove Albion striker Mark O’Mahony also missed the win against QPR after picking up an injury in training just days before the game.
There is understandable concern from supporters over the number and severity of the injuries suffered across Mousinho’s squad – but the Pompey boss kept his cards close to his chest as he prepares his players for what could be one of the biggest games of the season.
He told The News: ‘I know everybody is keen to get a full update on the injury situation – but I think the best thing for us at the moment, rather than me as you are probably used to on a Wednesday sometimes giving you the full extent of it and sometimes not and everyone unpicking it, I’m more than happy to give you the full rundown after the game at the weekend. Everybody will get a fairly good idea of where we are at injury-wise once the team and the squad are selected at the weekend so I think the best thing for us going into the game is to approach it like that and then no issues after that giving you where we are at with everything.’
When asked to explain the change in policy over delivering updates on injuries, he added: ‘I just think it’s one of those weeks where there are going to be players returning from injury, some that will miss out, there’s going to be some new and old injuries and the best thing for us in terms of preparation for the game is to make sure we keep everything in-house and go from there. ‘
Mousinho did give a fascinating insight in the process he hopes to put into place to prevent such an injury crisis decimating his squad in the future as he revealed he had held ‘big discussions’ with his staff over how to improve the current situation – and he also confirmed further talks would take place during the summer months as he prepares for what he hopes will be a second consecutive season in the second tier.
He said: ‘It’s one of those things, there’s nothing you can do once players are injured. You just have to deal with it really quickly and in the moment, on matchdays and the same applies in the week when you’re building up to games. If somebody is injured, you have the squad for a reason and you adapt really quickly. That’s the way we’ve had to process it. It’s never nice picking up those injuries. What we always do is, even though it may seem like something we just deal with and move on, we review what we can do about certain injuries and how we can improve things. That’s the big discussion we’e been having over the last couple of seasons and it’s the big discussion we will have in the summer and we are going to try our best to prevent as many injuries as possible.’
Discussion about this post