Portsmouth dressing room speaks as questions asked continuing over volume of injuries after Championship return

But the defender feels there is no pattern to pinpoint over the volume of issues which have hindered the Blues this term.

John Mousinho’s side have been hit with a continuing stream of fitness setbacks to important players since returning to the Championship, after a 12-year absence.

That follows on from what was an unprecedented tale of woe when it came to serious injuries to key players in League One last term.

READ MORE: Learn more about Pompey defender Regan Poole’s road to injury recovery.

Mousinho recently stated that he ‘dreads’ news of players being sidelined away from eyes of supporters, after Jacob Farrell suffered a recurrence of a knee problem following a slip at the club’s Hilsea base.

That’s in the wake of Ibane Bowat suffering a season-ending knee injury in training, without kicking a competitive ball following his £500,000 arrival from Fulham.

Tom McIntyre (hamstring) and Farrell (knee) both were hit with pre-season injuries in behind-closed-doors friendly against Wycombe at Pompey’s training home.

On top of that, Alex Robertson’s season was ended last term when falling victim of a serious hamstring issue in training - that after Kusini Yengi was injured in a collision with Christian Saydee.

Pompey have also seen an unusual double loss in Fratton Park pre-match warm-ups this term, losing Conor Shaughnessy (calf) and Yengi (groin) ahead of home games.

Last season also saw long-term issues for the likes of McIntyre (broken ankle), Tino Anjorin (hamstring), Joe Morrell (knee), Regan Poole (knee), Terry Devlin (shoulder) and Josh Dockerill (knee) in an unrelenting tale of woe.

Williams has seen that pattern continue since joining from Barnsley this summer with Shaughnessy, Farrell, Yengi, Callum Lane and Colby Bishop the players unavailable.

But the voice from the dressing room feels inspection of the problems shows Pompey aren’t culpable for the tale of woe.

Williams said: ‘The main thing from the start of the season was we had a lot of centre-backs out.

‘It seems like the roles have reversed slightly and we’ve got a lot of strikers out.

‘It’s weird, it’s a weird one.

‘We had it at Barnsley where we got a lot of knee injuries - it was just weird.

‘You can’t work out why it’s happening, there’s no pattern to it.

‘It’s not like they are muscle injuries and you can try to prevent them, it’s just random, weird injuries.

‘So you can’t get too down about it. We just need to stay ready as a team and push on.’