Portsmouth manager John Mousinho has celebrated the return of key attacking players ahead of this weekend’s clash against QPR with the south coast side looking to continue their climb away from the relegation zone.
Pompey have been threatened with Championship relegation all season but back-to-back wins against Cardiff City and Oxford United have seen Mousinho’s men rise to 18th in the second tier. Portsmouth are now just five places behind the R’s ahead of the meeting at Fratton Park on Saturday.
The hosts will go into that fixture already buoyed by recent results and are given motivation by the return of key men in what The News has gone so far as to label a ‘massive boost’ for the side. The impressive Kusini Yengi could feature after a three-month lay-off.
Portsmouth to host QPR with strength in depth
Yengi joins Colby Bishop, Mark O’Mahony and Christian Saydee as striking options to take on QPR. Such a selection dilemma is a new challenge for Mousinho this term due to injuries – the only time he has had such a healthy forward line was when Portsmouth picked up a first home win of the season against Preston North End in November.
Mousinho said: “Kas is in full training and available for the weekend. He needs to push to start as many games as possible. I think we’ve got 13 games left and Kas needs to try to start all 13 of them, that’s my take on what his ambitions should be.
“I’d say the same thing to Colby, Tom, Christian and Mark – it’s good to have that competition. I think you can strip that back because they can’t all do it, but they need to affect things as much as they can.
Mousinho celebrates injury boost
“In fairness to Kas, before he went out injured he started three games, he was part of that big home win over Preston and he was starting to look effective. He’s struggled with injuries. He was set to start at Leeds but had a groin issue and when we got him back for Hull it was one of our best performances of that part of the season, the same against Plymouth and the same against Preston.
“I thought he grew into that really well and by the time he came off against Preston he was going into the international break in really good form. Unfortunately, he got injured for Australia and we haven’t seen him since.
“Our thought process going into the season was Kusini, Colby and Christian were three forwards vying for that position. We weren’t recruiting to recruit in that area, but we had Colby’s heart surgery and issues with Kas’s groin – so we decided to recruit. Now we have that strong department and we’re certainly looking forward to seeing more of Kas.”
QPR could have their own injury boost for the weekend with Lucas Andersen and Kader Dembele both nearing returns from lengthy lay-offs. However, Marti Cifuentes won’t want to change too much after putting four past Derby County last time out.
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