'It was a mistake': Portsmouth boss' honest Tom Lowery admission after more injury woes

John Mousinho admits he made a ‘mistake’ selecting Tom Lowery against Cambridge United - and takes full responsibility.

The midfielder pulled up with a hamstring injury in the 36th minute of the 3-1 victory over Cambridge United and was replaced by Owen Moxon.

It’s yet another injury blow for the luckless Blues, who already have four players ruled out for the campaign - among them two central midfielders in Alex Robertson and Joe Morrell.

In this instance, however, Mousinho concedes he may be to blame, having opted against resting Lowery - a player with a worrying injury record - for Tuesday night’s clash.

It represented the Crewe man's seventh successive appearance, of which five have been starts, since returning from a five-month absence following knee surgery.

Now Pompey are waiting on the outcome of their latest injury set-back. 

Mousinho told The News: ‘We thought Tom would be ready to play, obviously that’s my decision and something I take responsibility for.

‘He has worked so hard to get himself back fit, he has worked so hard to get into the side, and we have been managing him over the past 6-8 weeks, particularly bringing him out after we played against Port Vale.

‘That’s one that I thought we made the right decision to start based on everything we knew - and obviously I’m really gutted for that.

‘In hindsight, it feels like a mistake, but it didn’t at the time. I thought Tom would be ready, we had long, long conversations over the weekend about what that looked like. We had conversations with Tom as well.

‘It’s only fair when I look at all the injuries we’ve had, I speak about not being able to do anything about the majority of them. For this one, the reason I take responsibility is because we could have made a different decision.

‘I always make decisions based on what I think is best for the side and best for us to go and win games.

‘Tom has done so well. We played him because we thought that gave us the best chance of winning the game.’

Although too early to be certain of the length of Lowery’s absence, Mousinho is encouraged.

And he doesn’t believe the hamstring injury is ‘too severe’.

He added: ‘I don’t know. I think it’s a bit more than tightness and hopefully a lot less than we have seen with Alex and Tino.

‘He has tweaked it but it’s not too severe, hopefully we’ll see him back relatively soon. He will have a scan on Wednesday then we’ll get the results.

‘We have seen the footage and he does pull up, but I don’t think it’s too severe.’