John Mousinho insisted signing overseas players isn’t a barrier to Championship success.

But the Pompey boss admitted there was ‘no alternative’ to look to different markets, as his club turned to foreign recruits at the transfer window’s conclusion.

The Blues brought down the curtain on winter trading with three signings on the final day, as Jacob Brown’s capture was followed up with Paraguayan winger Gustavo Caballero being joined by Senegalese defender Madiodio Dia.

The big exit came in the shape of Callum Lang joining Preston North End for a record fee – previously £2.15m – in a deal confirmed after the 7pm deadline cut-off.

Dia has been plying his trade in Norway with relegated top flight outfit Haugesund, while Caballero joins from Brazilian second-tier outfit Santos.

Pompey’s final deals coming from abroad marks a return to overseas business which has drawn mixed reviews over the past couple of years.

Keeper Nico Schmid has been the big success story, but the signings of Abdoulaye Kamara, Elias Sorensen and Alexander Milosevic didn’t work out.

Last summer Mark Kosznovszky and Luke Le Roux cost £1m apiece, but haven’t delivered yet. Aussie Adrian Segecic has been a strong signing, but the same can’t yet be said for all of his countryman so far.

The requirement now is for new faces to contribute to Championship survival and quickly make a Fratton impact, with Mousinho stating the homework has been done to make that happen.

He said: ‘If a good player comes to my attention when I walk out of this room and is a complete unknown from a foreign league, it may take a bit of work or trust in the recruitment team.

‘But you can guarantee any player we signed we’ve done a lot of work on. If you’ve not heard of them before, it’s because we’ve kept them under wraps.

‘I can name quite a few players who’ve come to England from Norway and South America and done extremely well. I don’t see why the country has anything to do with it, it has nothing to do with it.

‘There’s always the potential adjustment period, we take all those things into account.

‘If we could sign proven Championship players of a good age who were ready to come into the side now, we’d probably be someone like Ipswich who can sign Anis Mehmeti.

‘We have to be different in the ways we recruit. We have to take Millenic Alli and we have to take Keshi Anderson. We are extremely happy to have those two, but they are different profiles who show we have to work in different ways to other clubs.

‘We’ve done that across the board with the transfers – and we’re really happy with them.

‘Rather than plucking a Dan Neil, we may have to say Luton have taken Millenic Alli, a really talented player, but for whatever reason it’s not worked out this year.

‘So we will do that and do it in a slightly different way. If we have to do it by doing that or taking players from foreign countries, we will.’

Mousinho: ‘No alternative to how we can operate as football club’

Pompey’s deadline day business follows Millenic Alli, Ebou Adams, Keshi Anderson and Aji Alese as January’s other additions.

Mousinho reiterated how his club’s work shows how they to be creative in their recruitment, bringing an element of risk to Pompey’s business.

He added: ‘There’s no alternative to how we can operate as a football club at the minute, that’s absolutely fine. There’s a calculated risk on absolutely everything. You have to take calculated risks and sometimes there’s absolute bankers who don’t pay off.

‘We just have to be clever in how we operate and take every decision on its merits, what we have in front of us and all the work the recruitment team’s done. We’ll then make a decision based off that.’