‘No boundaries’: Portsmouth casting transfer net wide as overseas new face lands at Fratton

And the Blues will conceivably look to take advantage of more overseas players being placed at their disposal, as their recruitment drive continues.

But John Mousinho acknowledged the club not having a European-wide scouting department does present some obstacles to signing players from the continent and beyond.

The arrival of Kusini Yengi last year and his development as a huge asset for the club does underline that international recruitment can be carried out, in the eyes of the Pompey boss.

Pompey’s pre-season campaign got underway on Monday, with Irish teenager Sean Patton a surprise face in the starting line-up at Gosport.

Mousinho is running the rule over the Derry City striker after landing Northern Ireland midfielder Terry Devlin 12 months ago from Glentoran.

Under FA rules, the door has been pushed wider open to recruiting international players following promotion to the Championship.

Last summer, the parameters were relaxed over signing players who don’t meet the points requirements of the international visa system.

In League One that means two players could be recruited who fall outside of the Governing Body Endorsement (GBE) criteria.

But that figure rises to four players for Premier League and Championship sides, meaning Pompey are now afforded greater flexibility to bring in overseas talent along with fellow promoted sides Oxford and Derby.

Mousinho explained there’s a balance to strike between utilising the avenues open to them and doing their due diligence, however.

He said: ‘With our recruitment we don’t have any boundaries.

‘The ease with which we can bring players into this country is lifted slightly, so it’s slightly easier to bring players in.

‘We obviously did a bit of work in Australia last year. Obviously there’s Ireland and Northern Ireland.

‘Terry (Devlin) is someone we got directly and the likes of Gavin (Whyte) had a really excellent spell in Northern Ireland before he came over to England all those years ago.

‘So I think there are some really good markets in Northern Ireland and Ireland - and also Europe.

‘Europe has now opened up to us, but it’s maybe slightly more difficult because all of our live scouts are based in the UK, so watching these players sometimes can be more difficult.

‘Sometimes we take a calculated one, like we did Kusini, where we’d never seen him live but had seen enough of him on video to convince us he was a player we wanted to bring over.

‘So it’s just getting that balance right between the two, which can be a bit difficult.’