'A huge role to play': John Mousinho's reassuring message to luckless Portsmouth man

Tom Lowery has featured for just 45 minutes this season after tearing the meniscus in his left knee on the opening day.

The popular midfielder won the nod to start that Bristol Rovers clash, before forced off at half-time with the serious injury.

Reassuringly, the 25-year-old is well on the comeback trail, although realistically John Mousinho doesn’t expect him to challenge until the second half of the campaign.

But despite having added loanees Alex Robertson and Tino Anjorin to their midfield options since Lowery’s set-back, the Blues head coach sees him having a prominent part.

Mousinho told The News: ‘Tom is a different type of midfielder and that’s what we want across all of those six positions.

‘These are players who can come in and work within the system, so they aren’t wildly varied from each other, but all have different qualities – and Tom certainly has that.

‘We are looking at having him available for the second half of the season. Having been out for that amount of time, it’s obviously going to take him a bit of time to get into the flow of things.

‘It’s going to be like having a new signing. It was like that last season because he didn’t feature for me at all until Cambridge in March.

‘I definitely see a role for him, we wouldn’t have been so quick to go out and replace him if we didn’t think he was such an important part of the squad.

‘If we saw Tom as a bit-part player that didn’t have a role, maybe we would have thought we could get away with not replacing him. So that’s a compliment to him – the fact we have gone out and strengthened since then.

‘I definitely think Tom has a huge role to play.’

Lowery has played just 22 times since arriving in August 2022 as a free agent, with injury wrecking his time on the south coast.

Yet he remains well admired by supporters and within the club.

Mousinho added: ‘Tom was one of our starting midfielders at the beginning of the season and also started quite a few at the back end of last year.

‘We’ll have to see how that plays from when Tom is back. Things change very, very rapidly.’