Latest: Portsmouth boss delivers midfielder transfer update after Marlon Pack injury blow
Pompey have lost their skipper to injury with other midfield options still finding their feet. John Mousinho updates on the likelihood of transfer business centrally, as things stand.
Pompey are likely to resist the temptation to bolster their midfield with Marlon Pack sidelined.
Blues boss John Mousinho has stated he will ‘probably’ not look to further recruitment in the middle of the park, after his skipper underwent knee surgery.
Pompey boss clarifies midfield transfer position
Mousinho is confident there is the required depth to his options, even with Pack out of the equation at present.
Pack successfully came through his procedure with a six-week time frame put on the 34-year-old getting back into the equation.
There, of course, is the requirement for the Buckland lad to get up to speed and approaching the level he had reached in a strong pre-season campaign.
In the meantime, the Blues have Andre Dozzell, John Swift, Luke Le Roux and Mark Kosznovsky as their front-line midfield options with the Championship campaign up and running.
Kosznovszky is evidently still finding his feet after the Hungarian’s debut against Reading on Tuesday evening, while Mousinho has spoken about Le Roux having a stop-start period as he came out of the IFK Varnamo side ahead of his move to England.
Then there was the wait for international clearance for both men, which has limited the amount of training they’ve been able to carry out since joining Pompey.
Those cumulative factors aren’t likely to persuade Mousinho to ask for midfield reinforcements with two-and-a-half weeks of the transfer window remaining, however.
The head coach pointed to having both Terry Devlin and Zak Swanson as versatile options, who can be deployed centrally, as midfield insurance.
Mousinho would also be loathe to bring in another midfield body, and then create a potential issue over having frustrated squad members due to a lack of playing time.
Asked is Pack’s injury means a new midfield signing is needed, Mousinho said: ‘It probably doesn’t, because we’ve got four or five players in the middle of the park with Luke, Andre, Swifty and Mark. We have those four split between the two positions in the six and the eight.
‘Terry (Devlin) can do it and Swanny (Swanson) can do it as well, so I don’t think that there is an urgency there.
Pompey boss: ‘You want to have a happy squad’
‘We don’t want to be over-inflated in those positions, that’s a key part of it.
‘There’s a real balance, in terms of squad building, between making sure you have enough players but then also not going over the top.
‘You want to have a happy squad and there’s only 11 players you can select every week.
‘Ultimately, if you carry a squad of 28 players there are going to be a lot of players who are going to be disappointed.’
Le Roux, Kosznovszky, Swift, Adrian Segecic, Florian Bianchini and Minhyeok Yang are the new faces through the door so far.
There’s now 18 days until the transfer window closes at 7pm on September 1.