'I accept plenty of blame': Portsmouth boss John Mousinho's honest admission over transfer flop
The Guinean midfielder made six appearances for Pompey
He arrived with a sparkling footballing CV boasting Paris Saint-Germain and Borussia Dortmund - but, 11 months later, Abdoulaye Kamara is being ushered out of the Pompey exit.
And an honest John Mousinho admits he must take ‘plenty of blame’ for the 20-year-old’s crushing Fratton Park failure.
Recruited in August 2024 on a four-year deal for an undisclosed fee, albeit with unverified reports claiming comfortably exceeding more than £1m, the midfielder went on to make just six appearances.
Sadly, Kamara was unable to build on a hugely encouraging debut off the bench against Sunderland at Fratton Park just 11 days into his Blues career.
Tellingly, he didn’t make a Pompey squad again following a full debut in the embarrassing FA Cup defeat at Wycombe in January.
And now he has been told he has no south-coast future.
‘Sometimes these things just don’t work out’
Mousinho told The News: ‘We’ve had a conversation about what it looks like for him this year and Abdu needs to go and play somewhere. We want to give him the best opportunity to try to do that.
‘We know he’s not going to be part of the side of the squad this year, so he needs to go and find something else. That was very amicable and we shook hands - now he’s looking for other opportunities.
‘Sometimes things just don’t work out, for whatever reason, and a lot of that is on myself and the way we changed the playing style towards the end of last season. We probably recruited him for a certain role which we didn't end up using.
‘I have always acknowledged that there’s plenty of blame I will take for that and sometimes these things just don’t work out.
‘He settled in this country and was absolutely fine in training, there were no issues there. It’s just a case of the way we were playing and the situation we were in last season - and the playing style we anticipate this season not really fitting Abs’ own strengths.’
Not trained for two weeks
Kamara has not trained with Pompey since returning for testing on the opening two days of pre-season, including being absent from their Slovakian training camp.
Having made a profit on Christian Saydee and Ryley Towler in recent weeks, it appears they may have to accept a hit when it comes to offloading Kamara.
Yet Mousinho is far from downhearted by the failure of that particular Blues signing.
He added: ‘It happens. When we had success in the first year in terms of getting promoted, there were plenty of players of the 14 that we brought in (summer 2023) who aren’t here today. It didn't necessarily work out for some of them, yet plenty contributed in different ways.
‘Everybody we’ve signed has definitely contributed in a certain way. For some players it hasn’t necessarily worked out, but they have still made huge contributions in small ways - and that has been very, very important for us over the last couple of years.’