Portsmouth boss' injury admission as Blues talisman rediscovers his mojo with perfect timing

John Mousinho accepts it has taken Colby Bishop time to regain match sharpness following injury.

Yet the leading scorer’s strong first-half display against Stevenage emphatically demonstrated that Pompey’s talisman now rediscovered his spark.

There were fears of a long lay-off for the striker after damaging his left ankle at Burton at the end of November, forcing him off half-time and leaving him on crutches.

Thankfully, the absence would last just two matches and, after successive substitute outings, he has started the Blues’ last four fixtures.

However, there were unmistakable signs that the pre-injury Bishop was back in business during the 2-1 victory over Stevenage, in which he scored with a classy backheel.

Mousinho told The News: ‘I think sometimes it takes time to get back up to speed with league football, if you miss matches it can be really difficult.

‘The most important thing for us is we know Colby gives us a huge amount on and off the ball. We want to make sure everything we do in terms of the baseline of his performance is to make sure he leads the front line, presses really well and is a physical threat.

‘You’ll get up to speed very, very quickly, but it’s just sometimes it takes a bit of time (after injury) and we’ve relied heavily on him.

‘His goal celebration was muted, but that’s fine, I don’t have a problem. Colby has probably just been frustrated at not scoring goals - and he’s a goalscorer. The only thing I really care about is he put the ball into the back of the net to give us the lead.

‘Footballers are humans, obviously, they hear and see everything and that’s fine, it's a tough old game, there are high expectations when you play for Pompey. The weight of playing here is real, especially when you’re top of the league.

‘It’s one of those things you take on board. Colby is really, really popular here, you can hear his song being sung around the ground when he scores - and when he doesn't score, you see everything he puts in.’

Bishop’s 13th goal of the campaign proved to be the match winner as the Blues returned to winning ways following a disappointing Christmas.

And Mousinho was delighted how the 27-year-old linked up with Paddy Lane and Abu Kamara.

He added: ‘We had a lot of good play down the right-hand side and a lot of it was because Colby was dropping deep and Abu was spinning in behind, that’s one of the things we wanted to exploit.

‘At Exeter we felt we didn’t have quite enough forward runs and didn’t threaten them enough in behind, so we wanted to make sure that Paddy and Abu were close enough to do that.

‘Colby’s natural game is to come short anyway, so when we can get him the ball and link he’s probably more of a 10 at times.

‘Stevenage changed their shape and the way they play at half-time and it opened up different things for us to be able to try to exploit. We just didn’t manage to do that.’