John Mousinho happy with the answer to solving Portsmouth's latest agonising promotion blow

John Mousinho has backed Jack Sparkes to fill the gulf left by Connor Ogilvie’s absence.

The Blues have lost their regular left-back to a knee injury, which is likely to sideline him for a total of seven matches as the promotion race enters the home straight.

As a consequence, Sparkes was handed his first start since mid-January as Pompey played out a goalless draw at Blackpool.

Certainly Ogilvie’s re-emergence from injury at the turn of the year had coincided with an upturn in fortunes for Mousinho’s men.

Now the Blues have turned back to Sparkes - and his head coach is confident the ex-Exeter man will rise to the challenge.

Mousinho told The News: ‘Jack was really solid on Saturday, he grew into the game well. Especially coming in from the cold as Jack did against a player as physical as Jordan Gabriel.

‘The one thing to remember is Jack probably had a difficult afternoon at Fratton Park against them, so that obviously weighs on your mind.

‘So for him to come in and play as well as he did, we’re pleased for him.

‘We found out about Connor’s injury earlier in the week and we’d have backed Sparkesie up against whoever we played.

‘We predicted that CJ Hamilton wasn’t going to start and thought it was a good chance to get on top of him because, on his day, Jack is more than capable of doing it.

‘It was really difficult for him to come in at short-notice and fit into a side which wants to try to win every game, so fair play to Jack.

‘He did everything well for the last 6-7 weeks when not in the side, he has worked on his game, worked on his fitness, and these things are really important for the squad.’

Sparkes was forced off in the 74th minute at Bloomfield Road after Gabriel’s challenge cut his left ankle.

Initially, the Blues weren’t too concerned with the left-back’s problem - but once again the importance of the squad is highlighted ahead of Tuesday night’s encounter with Burton.

Mousinho added: ‘We might have picked up a couple of injuries on Saturday, hopefully not, but if we have then we’ve got to be ready for the next man to step up and deal with it.

‘We need everyone, we don’t know what’s going to happen over the next few weeks. As we’ve seen in the last week, you might trip over with no-one near you or there might be a really poor challenge and you end up with an injury.’