Portsmouth boss John Mousinho admits key coaching vacancy shelved - for now
Zesh Rehman announced his departure as first-team development coach in December
Pompey have shelved plans to fill the coaching vacancy created by Zesh Rehman’s departure - for now.
With focus fixed on remaining in the Championship, John Mousinho is adamant the position to be addressed in the summer.
Former Fratton favourite Joe Morrell was subsequently sounded out over a potential return to the Blues to fill the vacant first-team development role.
However, the 29-year-old instead opted to begin his coaching career with Bristol City under-21s in January, the club where he started his playing career.
For Pompey, it presently leaves Mousinho, Jon Harley and Michael Doyle on Pompey’s management and coaching staff in the absence of Rehman.
And Mousinho has explained why they will not be adding to his backroom during the remaining six weeks of the Championship season.
‘We don’t want to distract ourselves at the minute’
The Blues’ head coach told The News: ‘Not at the moment, we are fully focused on what we want to do in the league at the minute and we feel we don’t want to distract ourselves at the minute.
‘Changing anything to do with the coaching staff and the impact of a new coach coming in at this stage of the season is something which probably isn’t the right thing to do. So we’re going to leave it until the summer.
‘If you look at us in my first two-and-a-half years here, we had myself, Jon and Zesh, three coaches, so we always had three coaches. Now, even without Zesh, we have three coaches because we added Michael (Doyle) last summer.
‘So we feel that, as a coaching staff, we can cope with that at the moment. We still want to add that in the summer, but, for the short-term, we think it’s fine.’
Former Hawks manager helping out
Under Mousinho, Rehman was appointed to the new position of first-team development coach in March 2023, involving working individually with players.
At the time, he had temporarily stepped up from his role as the Academy’s lead professional development phase coach to help out with the first-team.
In August 2025, Pompey subsequently added to their coaching ranks with Doyle returning for a third Fratton Park spell, having served as a League Two-winning skipper and later assistant to Academy Under-18s boss Sam Hudson.
Replacing Joe Prodomo as set-piece coach, Doyle has taken on a dual role which also involves coaching on the training pitch.
Meanwhile, the Blues continue to be helped by the hugely-respected Shaun North, who was dismissed as Hawks boss in November, yet maintains his long-standing links at Fratton Park.
And Mousinho insists all the coaching staff are currently chipping in to look after Rehman’s former job until the end of the current season.
He added: ‘Zesh’s a bit extra for the three of us, we have Northy as well around at the moment. So I think we’re coping absolutely fine.’