Portsmouth boss' player pledge as Blues aim for exciting transfer window finale

The Blues have already signed 12 players this summer - but their head coach wants two more signings.

That includes Brighton striker Mark O’Mahony, who will complete a loan deal once Tuesday night’s Carabao Cup clash with Crawley has been fulfilled.

The window closes on Friday (August 30) at 11pm, with Pompey confident of adding to their squad before that deadline as they strive to build on an encouraging start to life back in the Championship.

Mousinho told The News: ‘Yes, we will be busy this week. It will probably be two more signings, but we’ll keep an eye on that as the week goes on.

‘What’s going to be interesting after Saturday is seeing what the Premier League do with under-21s who have maybe been in squads, but there are now a few players coming back.

‘Particularly with the Carabao Cup second round about to take place, there has been a bit of hesitancy about letting any players go, so we’ll see what that looks like after Tuesday - and I think we’ll have a busy end of the transfer window.

‘Even when we were pretty much done last year and happy with our position, we were still waiting for things to pop up. If anything pops up now and we think it’s going to be a really good opportunity to take a player, then we’ll do that.’

Nicolas Schmid, Abdoulaye Kamara and Harvey Blair all arrived last week for undisclosed fees.

With a potential two further arrivals, Mousinho admits he may look to move out several players considered surplus to requirements.

That includes Anthony Scully, while the Fratton futures of Ben Stevenson and Gavin Whyte are also unclear.

Mousinho added: ‘I’m not sure if many will go, that is something we need to have a look at based on injury returns, because, at the minute, we’ve only got 19-20 fit pros to choose from.

‘So that’s going to be something we have to wait on, we can’t make ourselves weaker for the Sunderland game.’