Portsmouth Boss John Mousinho Eyes A Bright Future For The Highly-Regarded  Youngster

That’s the message from John Mousinho as he eyes a bright future for the highly-regarded former Liverpool youngster.

Blair hasn’t featured since appearing as a substitute in the 1-1 draw with Oxford United, missing out on the Blues’ last three squads.

Nonetheless, this represents the 21-year-old’s maiden Football League season, with one previous Carabao Cup outing for the Reds, along with three EFL Trophy games.

And Mousinho is convinced the winger needs time and understanding to adapt to the first-team environment after finally leaving under-21s football.

He told The News: ‘At the moment Harvey isn’t starting football games, but he has been good enough to challenge because he played against Stoke.

‘We then didn’t think he was good enough to keep his place against Oxford and it’s a big challenge for those sort of players, but you are always going to have that.

‘I draw comparisons to one of the most successful loans last year in Abu Kamara, who took a long while to get going, he was under a lot of pressure and got a lot of stick from a lot of the fans early on.

‘He probably turned out to be one of our best players and got a £4.5m move to Hull. Sometimes these things do take a bit of time. We want everyone to progress really, really quickly, it’s just a case of a bit of patience.

‘With Harvey there have been plenty of ups and a couple of downs, but, when he’s been at his best, I think he has been a real threat. We’ve got to keep on top of that and give him a bit of time to progress.’

However, the winger was sidelined by illness ahead of the trip to QPR, ruling him out that 2-1 victory and subsequent trip to Cardiff.

Mousinho added: ‘There has already been plenty of improvement, it’s his first time playing any football outside of under-21s.

‘We signed Harvey because we think he’s got the potential to do it/ We’ve all seen enough of him to know that, when he’s on it, he can cause a lot of problems for full-backs. He has come on in games and done that.

‘We just want to see it more and more often.’