Portsmouth boss’ clear message over blooding exciting academy youngsters when season gets underway

And the Blues boss congratulated the young talents for taking their chances as they throw into the first-team fray last week.

With a host of first-team injuries at present Mousinho has turned to emerging scholars in the wins at Gosport and Hawks.

Koby Mottoh, Sam Folarin and Mitch Aston started in the 3-1 success at Privett Park with seven academy players finishing the game - and making positive impacts following their introductions with 26 minutes left.

Mousinho rewarded those performances by handing Harvey Laidlaw, Dan Murray and Destiny Ojo starts the following day - with the average age of Pompey’s starting XI just 20 at West Leigh Park.

That number markedly went down with Josh Oluwayemi and Liam Vincent the only senior players on the pitch at the full-time whistle.

Mousinho was delighted with their performances in the 1-0 win, which offered the head coach food for thought moving forward.

The 37-year-old insisted he wouldn’t have turned to the academy players if he thought they weren’t up to the task of playing for the first team.

Now he feels they have what it takes to make an impact if league or cup action if required next term.

Mousinho said: ‘I think it’s great, whether it’s pre-season or not.

‘I still remember when I first played a pre-season game for the first time.

‘They’ve got to wear the Portsmouth shirt and it’s a first-team game.

‘Of course it’s pre-season and their ambitions will be to play in the league or one of the cups.

‘But this is something no one can take away from there and it’s a massive, massive opportunity.

‘It was really nice to reward a couple of lads with starts at Hawks after Gosport.

‘We wouldn’t have done it and shuffled the pack another way if we didn’t think the lads were capable of coming in.

‘So the top performers from Gosport came in and started and I’m really happy we were able to give them that chance, because they’ve taken it.

‘Now when we have decisions to make, whether it’s pre-season games or into the season, we know they are more than capable.’