And John Mousinho believes the rare gift the Frenchman will add to his new side’s ranks has been missing at times from their second-tier campaign.
The Blues boss has welcomed the arrival of Aouchiche, with a deal agreed for the 22-year-old to spend the second half of the campaign at Fratton Park.
The need for attacking reinforcements has been obvious with Mousinho’s squad short on options to change games from the bench.
Mousinho said: ‘I think he gives us the ability to unlock defences and I think we’ve missed that at times.
‘He can play anywhere across the front three and is a very technical player, with the ability to go away from players.
‘We’ve seen first hand how good he is as a player up at the Stadium of Light, when he nearly scored and caused us all sorts of problems down that left-hand side.
‘He’s a very lively, technical number 10 who can bring goals, assists and unlock the door.
‘I just feel he can complement our front four, whoever that is, quite nicely.’
Aouchiche has been joined by Cohen Bramall, who also arrived on Friday to add some depth to the left-back position with Jacob Farrell’s season over.
The Rotherham arrival will compete with Connor Ogilvie for playing time, who has improved as the season has unfolded.
Foil
Mousinho added: ‘I think Cohen can be a nice foil for Connor.
‘He’s a completely different player to Connor and is very, very athletic. I think he was one of the top athletes in the Championship last season and we expect him to be that again.
‘As the situation unravelled with Jacob it was difficult, because we didn’t necessarily want to use a loan on a left-back,
‘Permanents were a difficult one too, with two contracted left-backs. So to do this deal on a short-term basis makes a lot of sense.
‘He’s had a really good career and played a lot of games in the Championship with Rotherham.
‘It’s the right type of player and right profile of player, that’s massive for us.’
Discussion about this post