'Ready to go' - Portsmouth handed major selection boost for Birmingham City trip
John Mousinho has been speaking about Josh Murphy’s chances of starting against Birmingham City on Saturday
Josh Murphy is available to start for Pompey at Birmingham City on Saturday.
But head coach John Mousinho is still weighing up whether to hand the winger a starting berth in his side for the trip to St Andrew’s or to once again ease him back into action after a six-game lay-off with an ankle injury.
The Blues boss used the latter tactic last weekend against Stoke, with the 2024-25 Pompey player of the year named among his substitutes for his first-match-day squad involvement since the south coast derby against Southampton on September 14.
A 25-minute outing from the bench was all Murphy was granted as the Blues looked for a way to peg back Mark Robins’ side. And his impact was instantaneous, with the 30-year-old producing the home side’s best moment of the game that unfortunately Makenzie Kirk was unable to convert.
It gave the Fratton faithful and Mousinho a timely reminder of what the former Cardiff and Norwich forward can produce and what the Blues have been missing in recent games as they’ve slipped to 18th in the rankings.
But whether it sees the pacey wideman handed a start against a side just two points above Pompey in the table remains to be seen.
It’s a decision Mousinho and his coaching staff won’t make until Friday, with the head coach worried he might be asking too much too soon from the former £11m man.
When asked by The News if Murphy could start at St Andrew’s, Mousinho said: ‘Yeah, Josh is ready to start.
‘He trained all week fine, whether he does or not, we’ll take a view on that Friday. But physically he’s ready to go.
‘You’re not going to see him start three games in a week (straight after his injury), and we’ll take a view as to what we’ll do at the weekend because it’s just a consideration in terms of whether we bring him straight back, which is probably the temptation, versus giving him an increase in minutes from the 25 minutes he had at the weekend.
‘There’s nothing physically stopping him from doing it, but what we don’t want is any repeat injuries. We don’t want him to breakdown.’
‘You always take a rounded view on every single player and their circumstance - sometimes it works out and smetimes it doesn’t.
‘There’s always the benefit of hindsight with everything, but it’s a tough one - you don’t want to hold players back when they’re ready to play, but by the same token, you don’t want to risk them overly.
‘When we talk about that rounded view, it will be with the S&C (strength and conditioning), with physios, with the staff, and Murphy himself to see what we do.’
Murphy has featured just five times for Pompey this season, registering one assist.
At present, the Blues are joint-second-from bottom in the Championship for goals scored (10). Sheffield United have the worst goalscoring tally with nine goals from their 14 games to date.
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