Pompey skipper Marlon Pack set to miss start of season

Captain Marlon Pack will miss the start of Pompey’s 2026-27 Championship season.

The 35-year-old, who signed a new contract with the Blues during the close season, will have surgery on a knee injury on Thursday.

The decision comes after he featured in the second half of Pompey’s opening pre-season victory against Woking on Tuesday night.

The procedure is expected to keep the midfielder out for at least six weeks. Pompey kick-off the new season in just over three weeks with a trip to West Ham in the Carabao Cup on Saturday, August 8.

They then play host to QPR in their opening game of the Championship on Saturday August 15.

Pack missed the start of last season with a knee injury. He went on to make 34 Championship appearances, though, as the Fratton Park side finished 18th in the table.

Confirming his injury after the Blues’ 2-0 defeat to Aldershot on Wednesday evening, Mousinho told The News: ‘Marlon is going in for surgery tomorrow.

‘His knee did not hold up with the strain of the game yesterday (against Woking). We expect him to be out for about six weeks.

‘He’s got an issue with his meniscus that he was carrying at the back end of last season.

‘We were monitoring it to see how it would go in pre-season and it had been okay so far, but it swelled up this morning.

‘We always had it booked in, hence we can get it done really, really quickly.

‘We were waiting to see what the response was, we needed to test it first.’

Pack will join Connor Ogilvie on the sidelines for the start of the season. Last week the defender was ruled out for the beginning of the new campaign after he too required surgery on his knee.

Miidfielder Mark Kosznovszky is also out until the end of the year with an ACL injury he suffered last December.

Meanwhile, Ebou Adams is being carefully managed at the moment following his knee injury at the tail end of the 2025-26 season.

He’s yet to feature in any of Pompey’s pre-season outings to date.