'He's doing brilliantly well': John Mousinho on the rising star spearheading Portsmouth recruitment model

Terry Devlin is exceeding expectations, establishing himself as a firm Fratton favourite, while today impressively stands on the brink of a 50th Blues outing.

It has been a whirlwind introduction to the English game for the former Glentoran and Dungannon Swifts youngster since arriving as a highly sought-after teenager in June 2023.

The energetic midfielder fitted the ‘development project’ bill as a rising talent available for an attractive price - with the potential to blossom at Fratton Park and fetch a future handsome profit.

Just 18 months later, Devlin has totalled 49 appearances - including nine Championship starts - scored twice, claimed a League One title and trained with Northern Ireland’s senior side.

And Mousinho has been delighted with the rate of speed of the Irishman’s continued development.

He told The News: ‘The pathway we saw for Terry probably wasn’t 12 months in the building and then being a Championship right-back.

‘If you’d have said “Okay, as Championship central midfielder”, we would have said maybe that’s still another 12 months in the making for someone that young, someone coming over and experiencing full-time English football for the first time.

‘He played 79 games back in Northern Ireland before he came over here, so that gave him a good grounding. Not being derogatory, but it’s very, very different to come over and play in a different country full stop.

‘Terry has definitely exceeded expectations. He’s been a brilliant player to have around last season and particularly this season because of his versatility. We have him starting in different positions, we have him on the bench ready to come into different positions, and he has been very, very useful.

‘When looking to sign him, I never saw him live, but Rich and Phil (Boardman) did. I remember picking up the phone to Rich after he’d gone over to watch and he said “Terry is a yes, do you want to go over and see him?”.

‘My take was if he’s a yes then I don’t think I needed to! I’d seen enough of Terry on Wyscout to know he was someone we thought could definitely affect us.

‘This was one of those development projects for a low fee and, coming over from Northern Ireland, we thought it absolutely made sense.

‘We certainly never want to lose sight of that as a football club because we have to buy those sorts of players and try to develop them. First of all for Pompey first-team and hopefully for future value as well.’

It was Devlin’s header forward which created fellow substitute Mark O’Mahony’s stoppage-time goal in Saturday’s 2-0 success at Oxford United.

That outing represented a 24th appearance of the season for the popular Irishman, who has primarily been used as right-back competition for Jordan Williams and Zak Swanson.

And Mousinho still has high hopes for the Northern Ireland under-21 international continuing to flourish.

He added: ‘When he first came into the building during pre-season 18 months ago, physically Terry had a long way to go. Adjusting to the intensity of training and games was a big thing for him.

‘He then had to fight his way to get into the squad, which he did early last season. Next he had to fight his way into the starting line-up with his first start at Reading (October 2023), when he ended up scoring the winner.

‘Before his injury, he played plenty last year, I thought he had a real influence. At the time he came in as a right-back, I thought he was flourishing and I couldn’t see him coming out of the side.

‘He has done brilliantly well and this season will definitely want to play more, which is great, but he’s in a really good space at the moment.’