Portsmouth boss’ revealing plan for Colby Bishop’s return ahead of Swansea and Bristol City

The Magic Man is in line to start his first Championship game in Wales, after undergoing heart surgery this summer.

Bishop’s maiden start at the level has twice been aborted following back-to-back Blues postponements.

The 28-year-old was named on the team-sheet against Millwall on Wednesday night, before a power cut put paid to the clash at Fratton Park.

And Mousinho revealed Bishop was in his starting line-up, before the waterlogged pitch saw last weekend’s clash with Blackburn fall foul of the weather.

The Pompey boss explained there is no major worry from the striker over his wait to start matches, with the £500,000 signing not having any game time before his goalscoring return off the bench against Preston three weeks ago.

And Mousinho explained how he sees Bishop’s return accelerating from this point.

He said: ‘He’s fine, Colby is going to start games. He was going to start at the weekend and he’s going to start games, so Colby will be fine.

‘He’ll be as frustrated as the fans, I guess (at the postponements).

‘We’ll look at 45 (minutes) and go from there (against Swansea), we’ll reassess everything at half-time.

‘He’s been out for a long time and he’s had a major surgery, while not having the benefit of many minutes under his belt over the past few weeks.

‘We’ll take it as each match starts and look at it at the weekend, if he does start, and go from there.

‘We didn’t have any behind-closed-doors games in the build-up to Preston where Colby would’ve been fit, so that’s why (he didn’t play before Preston).

‘If he’d been passed fit after the Preston game, we would’ve had a game where he’d been involved.

‘He was in the starting line-up against Preston and I’ve given away my big secret that he was in the starting line-up against Blackburn, so there’s no issue.’