'We aren't going to stand in his way': Portsmouth boss clarifies Fratton future of ex-Spurs and Millwall man

John Mousinho has revealed Pompey will not stand in the way of Jordan Archer should he wish to leave.

The 32-year-old’s Fratton Park future is uncertain, with Ben Killip preferred as Nicolas Schmid’s understudy for the forthcoming Championship season.

Ideally, the Blues want four goalkeepers on their books and are in the process of exploring additions for that department, with Alfie Whiteman having trialled for the last fortnight.

Yet Archer has recently been attracting interest, most notably Salford, who this week instead opted to sign 38-year-old ex-Wrexham stopper Mark Howard and bring back Matty Young on a season-long loan from Sunderland.

Schmid, Killip and Whiteman were the goalkeepers who travelled to Reading on Saturday for Pompey’s 4-0 win in their latest friendly, with Archer not included.

And Mousinho admits the former Spurs and Millwall man could potentially depart this summer.

‘It’s probably not something we are going to stand in his way’

He told The News: ‘Jordan is just training as normal, there’s no change there. I don’t know if there is interest (in him), it’s one of those situations we are keeping fluid with.

‘If Jordan turns around and says there’s an opportunity where I can go and play football, it’s probably not something we are going to stand in his way.

‘But, at the same time, he has been training brilliantly, he played against Farnborough and he’s great to have around the place.

‘We always planned to play Nico for 90 minutes against Reading, so we didn’t want to drag along four goalkeepers and make it a difficult one.’

Killip set for Hawks friendly start

Killip is likely to start against the Hawks on Tuesday night (7pm), having been unused off the bench at the Madejski Stadium.

In terms of who could be back up at Westleigh Park, the Blues are weighing up whether Whiteman will continue to trial, having featured twice in pre-season so far, while Archer could also be a consideration.

So far, his sole outing was the second half of the 5-0 victory at National South Farnborough, having combined duties with Schmid.

Meanwhile, Toby Steward is away for the season on loan at St Johnstone, who helped beat Elgin City 8-0 on Saturday in the Scottish League Cup, for his fourth outing to date.

Portsmouth boss: We want four goalkeepers

And Mousinho has explained why Pompey want four goalkeepers available to them throughout the campaign.

He added: ‘We want to make sure we have strength in depth in the goalkeeping department, but it's a hard one because if you've got a number one, like we do with Nico, sometimes that can be hard to attract people to the football club.

‘Nico deserves that position, though, off the back of last season and what he has done with Austria.

‘We do speak about wanting to have four goalkeepers and a lot of the time that’s for training standards. We play a lot of small-sided games where we have two pitches going on at the same time, and in order to do that to a high level, you need to have four goalkeepers.

‘We are trying to strengthen that department, that’s the reason we want to end up with four.’

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