Portsmouth boss outlines more summer transfer details after Championship place secured

And that means loosening the purse strings this summer, as the net is cast wide to bring in more talent to take the club forward on the pitch.

The Blues hit a spending landmark in January, with £1.27m paid to secure the services of Aussie defender Hayden Matthews - the most shelled out for a player in 14 years.

Mousinho has already confirmed the boundaries can be pushed from that level, while previously speaking of markets being explored across the globe for talent.

Pompey had to adapt their recruitment work this season, with the pressing need to land the kind of experience required to keep the club in the division in January.

Mousinho is enthused about the work which now lies ahead and bringing in promising talent, who will come at a cost.

He said: ‘We had mix our long-term strategy in January with making sure we did enough to stay in the league.

‘We also had the first player in my time that we paid more than £1m for in Hayden.

‘Whenever we speak about transfer budgets with the football club, we have a rough idea of what there is to spend.

‘When we’ve asked for money or extra money, and we’ve done that a fair few times, the answer has always been yes.

‘It’s been about us saying things like “this is a player we can pay £1m-plus for and we think he’s going to come in and have a real impact now and for the future”. That was the case in Hayden Matthews, we’re backing him and we’re putting our name to him.

‘When that happened it’s always been a quick conversation, there’s never been any “oh we need to go away and think about it”. It’s been “yes, we’re going to do that”. Then it was how are we going to mix it? We were going to mix it with four loan players who will cost x amount, and that is going to take us way above our budget.

‘That’s what we have done, so fair play to the club because we’ve always had that ability to be flexible with it. With things like fees, we can spend on exciting, young players who can come in and make an impact now - so we’ll keep doing it.’

Mousinho: ‘Players who improve us’

Mousinho feels the ends certainly justified the means, when turning to loan additions who could make an immediate Championship impact in January. The likes of Rob Atkinson, Isaac Hayden and Adil Aouchiche certainly fulfilled the brief on that front, even i it was a move away from the stated club policy of trying to find talent to improve as assets.

Now though, Pompey can turn towards a long-term strategy while not neglecting the need for players to impact the here and now.

Mousinho added: ‘We always want to be smart and we don’t want to waste money.

‘We want to get to a position where we always have value in the squad.

‘That might have been easier if we’d stayed in League One for a few years, but that’s not what we wanted to do so we got into the Championship.

‘So then we had a mix of building value in the squad and bringing in players for the short term.

‘But there is that alignment there in terms of what we’re trying to achieve and the summer’s a good opportunity to do that again and bring players who can improve us.’

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