'It impacts our January recruitment': Portsmouth boss on huge blow of losing Manchester City man

John Mousinho believes Pompey must re-evaluate their January transfer plans following the loss of Alex Robertson.

The classy midfielder tore his hamstring during training on Thursday and has returned to Manchester City to be scanned.

At this early stage there is no time set for the Australian’s return to action, although Mousinho fears the absence could be longer than 10 days.

In the meantime, the Blues’ head coach is ready to reassess their approach to the window, with suddenly a potential midfield replacement needed to be identified.

Mousinho told The News: ‘Robbo felt his hamstring in training on Thursday, he’s gone back to Manchester City for a scan.

‘He isn’t one we are particularly hopeful of being a 7-10 dayer, we think it’s going to be longer than that, but we don’t know yet.

‘It’s going to be a tear and hopefully we’ll find out Monday when we get the scan done and go from there.

‘It happened in training, it was just one of those things, there was no contact or anything, he ended up feeling his hamstring.

‘It impacts our January recruitment, we’ll have a look at what that does. Robbo can cover a couple of different positions, as we’ve seen, and has been a really influential player.

‘That’s the perfect example (of how to approach January), you need to be prepared with every single position, you never know what’s going to happen.

‘We have come away with a clean bill of health, which is great, but these things can change very quickly in January.’

Ben Stevenson was another absence from Pompey’s squad at Cheltenham as injuries once again threaten to pile up.

Although Mousinho is adamant the midfielder was missing from his 18-man squad as a precaution.

He added: ‘Ben slightly felt his knee in training on Thursday as well.

‘He has been in and out of the squad and it’s one we thought was best just to give him a bit of rest and see where we are this time last week.

‘Hopefully it shouldn’t be too bad.’