Boss optimistic that Portsmouth have finally resolved their glaring Colby Bishop weakness

The former Accrington man last term netted 24 times in his maiden Fratton Park season, with Joe Pigott and Ronan Curtis joint-second with seven.

It’s a glaring issue the Blues subsequently sought to address during a busy summer of recruitment, with 14 new faces arriving on the south coast.

Reassuringly, Bishop has maintained his productivity, with eight goals in 14 matches so far in the current campaign.

However, there have been 15 different scorers in Pompey’s opening 16 matches in all competitions – while they last week beat Gillingham 5-1 in the EFL Trophy in Bishop’s absence.

And Mousinho is encouraged by the early indications.

He told The News: ‘We're trying to move away from relying on any one player to score goals, so we’ve attempted to add goals throughout with some of our recruitment – and we think we still have plenty more to come.

‘I know that Gavin Whyte is going to become much more of a goal threat, we’ve also got Anthony Scully, who scored 23 goals over his previous two League One seasons.

‘The likes of Abu will only grow in confidence and also Christian Saydee. We are adding goals from all over and are really pleased, it’s excellent for us to do that.

‘Hopefully we are now over that reliance and the only way to demonstrate that is how we go through the season.

‘But what was interesting over the run of recent games we’ve had is that, after Colby’s goal at Barnsley, he didn’t score against Lincoln and Wigan, and we managed to win those two games by registering four goals.

‘We’re trying to make sure we get over that. Naturally with Colby being the goalscorer he is, he’s going to pop up in the box and score plenty, with eight so far.

‘But the only way we’ll be able to say that we no longer rely on him will be the evidence at the end of the season.’

The League One leaders are presently the third-highest scorers with 21, while possessing the best defensive record.

Bishop has netted eight of their 33 goals in all competitions, with others including Kusini Yengi (5), Paddy Lane (3), Regan Poole (3), Abu Kamara (2) and Sean Raggett (2).

Noticeably, seven goals have been delivered from centre-half, with Poole, Raggett, Ryley Towler and Conor Shaughnessy all contributing.

Mousinho added: ‘We want players to attack the ball in the box and we work a lot on set-pieces, with Joe (Prodomo) putting a huge amount of work into them.

‘We are clicking with these and they are a massively important part of the game, particularly the way we play and the pressure we put on sides, we have to make sure we make the most of them.’