Portsmouth boost as injured duo help swell training number to 26 ahead of season finale against Hull

Both took part in Blues training on Wednesday as significant strides continue to be made in their individual battles to regain full fitness.

And while neither will feature against Hull City in the final game of the 2024-25 season at Fratton Park on Saturday, head coach John Mousinho revealed they’ll be available to play full roles in pre-season training when the players report back for duty following their summer break at the end of June.

Summer transfer window signing Bowat is yet to kick a ball for the Blues after the centre-back ruptured a tendon in his knee in training shortly after completing his permanent move from Premier League Fulham.

Meanwhile Lane - a key player in Pompey’s League One title success last season - suffered a knee injury against Blackburn Rovers in January. And with the 24-year-old requiring surgery, he’s subsequently been forced to sit out the Blues’ past 20 games and their successful attempt to secure Championship safety.

As you’d expect, both players have had to work hard - often on their own - to get themselves back to a position where they can rejoin their team-mates on the training pitch.

Their returns this week have helped swell the number of players taking part in training to 26 - a figure that Mousinho joked was the healthiest he’d experience all season.

And no-one was more pleased than Mousinho to welcome the duo back into the fold - even if their comebacks remain further down the line.

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Latest on injured Pompey duo

Providing an injury update to The News ahead of Saturday’s game against Hull, the head coach said: ‘There's no-one out, so no new players out (for the game against Hull).

‘We trained with a lot of players today, so we trained with about 26 players today because Ibane and Paddy trained, so that was really good news from our point of view.

‘We've managed to get them back out on the grass, a slightly modified session but really positive for the pair of them and we're looking to have them back pre-season now.

‘It will be a bit more of an elongated summer for them and less rest than everybody else, but I'm really pleased to have them back and overall it looks like in this stage of the season we've got the highest number of players available that we've probably had all year - so the fittest squad we've had.

‘So it will be a programme about making sure that they keep going with the strength and the recovery from the injury, but they're obviously training now, so they're close to being fully fit without playing the games, and so it'll be a bit of late-stage rehab for them and probably come back a week or two earlier than everyone else.’

Bowat and Lane’s return to training comes hot on the heels of the comebacks made by Callum Lang, Rob Atkinson and Conor Shaughnessy in recent weeks.

All three are once again expected to be available for the game against the Tigers - but there’s no comeback on the cards for Zak Swanson.

The right-back has been unavailable since the Blues’ win against Norwich with a heel injury and is not expected to feature against relegation-threatened Hull.

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