'History tells me!': John Mousinho on why Portsmouth need seven centre-halves
The Blues have six contracted central defenders - plus Sunderland loanee Aji Alese
It’s a position more well stocked than any other in Pompey’s squad - yet repeatedly impacted by a shortage of players.
Although, ever the pragmatist, John Mousinho is adamant having seven central defenders on the Blues’ books is definitely not too many.
The head coach received the green light to add further centre-halves to his squad during the January transfer window, with Aji Alese and Madiodio Dia arriving.
They join Regan Poole, Conor Shaughnessy, Ibane Bowat, Josh Knight and Hayden Matthews. While the versatile Conor Ogilvie has started there in the last two games.
The brutal reality is Mousinho has never had all available at the same time, with injuries consistently impacting on potential first-team selection.
Indeed, Shaughnessy, Knight and Matthews remained sidelined until the end of this month at the very least.
‘It’s too many if they were all fit!’
For Mousinho, it has made perfect sense to implement a contingency plan which gives him potentially seven central defenders.
He told The News: ‘It’s too many if they were all fit! You don’t have to manage them really, because they aren’t all fit!
‘But history tells me it’s not too many. I spoke about this the other week, during my time at the football club we’ve always had injuries, every single football club has got injuries.
‘If we have a situation where we’ve got all seven centre-halves fit then I will play the best two who I think will be playing every weekend. Then maybe the other two will get into the squad and the other three after that.
‘We’ve gone into some recent games with one centre-half at times. For the south-coast derby, we had one centre-back. I know Regan was on the bench, but he couldn’t really move.
‘It sounds quite heavy, but what do we do for the rest of the season? We don’t want to risk going into those games in February where we have Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday with the injury history with some of the players,
‘We can go “Oh actually, we’ll have to shoehorn someone else into centre-half” - or we can strengthen there. So that’s why the club gave us the backing to bring two centre-backs in.
‘There was a point a few weeks ago where we only had one fit and available - Ibane. And he was probably at 60 per cent.’
13 games in 12 months for Conor Shaughnessy
Shaughnessy’s hip flexor injury is expected to keep him out until the end of this month, although he has made just 13 appearances in the last 12 months.
Knight (back) has been sidelined since the end of November, after featuring against Bristol City at Fratton Park for his 13th successive outing.
While Matthews injured his ankle at Ashton Gate on New Year’s Day, having been introduced as a second-half substitute.
‘A significant time before he’s actually back fit’
Mousinho added: ‘Josh had a scan on his back at the end of last week to see how his stress fracture is healing, so we’re waiting on that.
‘He has been off feet now for eight weeks, so, if he gets the all-clear, there will still be a significant time before he’s actually back fit and available.
‘The way you look at it is eight weeks off his feet means he will be unavailable to play for another eight weeks. If he’s then also out for another couple of weeks, then we probably will have to mirror that for his comeback.
‘With Hayden thinking of a return for the Hull game, which is the back end of February.’