Latest: Portsmouth’s pursuit of Cardiff City winger set to accelerate with Oxford United keen on former Hull City man

And John Mousinho is hoping the Blues’ patient approach when it comes to their interest in the winger will pay off this summer.

Whyte is a free agent as he leaves Cardiff City, with a number of clubs interested in the 27-year-old - including former side Oxford United.

Mousinho knows his former team-mate from the Kassam Stadium will have options, so will be weighing up what lies ahead.

The Pompey boss underlined, however, he’s still keen in the former Hull man.

He said: ‘We’re certainly interested.

‘You want to do your business early, with some players they have a lot of options.

‘All the players we signed had a lot of options, but we managed to get them done early.

‘Gav is one where naturally he has quite of lot of options, with the pedigree he has. He has those years in the Championship and he is a Northern Ireland international.’

With Whyte away on international duty with Northern Ireland, Mousinho explained he felt it was necessary to give the Ulsterman some space to concentrate on his commitments.

He was an unused sub as Michael O’Neil’s men slipped to a 1-0 defeat in Denmark last Friday, but was not involved in the squad as they fell to reverse to Kazakhstan by the same margin at the start of the week.

Now those duties are out of the way, Mousinho can see the picture starting to become clearer for Pompey.

He added: ‘Even though the communication lines are there, sometimes it’s a little difficult until a player can properly finish (the season).

‘They can then start making decisions on what they do, it’s a genuine thing. It may sound mad because people can pick up the phone, but sometimes players just want to get the season done and look at it.

‘You have players like Will (Norris), who had the play-offs to contend with. Even though we could’ve picked up the phone we didn’t want to because the players have to concentrate and get into these games.

‘Internationals are the same, so respecting that is really important to us. Hopefully we can start getting a bit more movement on that towards the end of the week.’