'We have every intention...': Portsmouth boss' promise to trio after Football League squad exclusion
The Blues omitted six players from their Football League squad list - and opted to keep three spots vacant
John Mousinho is adamant Josh Murphy, Connor Ogilvie and Keshi Anderson will definitely be registered for Pompey duty - once they have proven their fitness.
The head coach has explained the reasoning behind excluding the trio from the Blues’ 25-man Football League squad, which was announced on Monday night.
Also missing were Harvey Blair, Jacob Farrell and Mark Kosznovszky, albeit rather more predictably than the absent threesome.
With 22 players named, it creates three available spots - with the injured Murphy, Ogilvie and Anderson pencilled in to take them when they become available.
And, having previously opted not to register injured players in the January squad list, Mousinho has revealed it’s a stance Pompey believe makes sense.
‘We have every intention of registering him when he’s back’
He told The News: ‘Murph is a really good test case for not registering injured players.
‘In January, we thought he was going to be back within 2-3 weeks when we registered the squad. He wasn’t, his injury dragged on, he ended up coming back at the back end of April.
‘But there is another scenario where Murph's injury is another two weeks out or he’s delayed for another 10 days - and he then doesn’t feature for the rest of the season. So we have wasted a squad space.
‘This season, I think Murph should be back in about six weeks, so we have every intention of registering him when he’s back.
‘But if there are any players who do have injury set-backs and we don’t end up needing them until January, there’s no point in burning one spot now. We can register very quickly and get that done.
‘Ogilvie is about four weeks away, Anderson is about two weeks away from full training, so we expect it to be the case that we register all of them.’
Portsmouth still seeking to offload duo
Kosznovszky isn’t expected to return from his knee injury until January, ensuring there’s little point in registering him for a period in which he won’t even play.
While the absences of Farrell and Blair are influenced by Pompey still attempting to offload the duo, hoping to capitalise on transfer windows still open in other areas of the world.
Instead Mousinho is putting his faith in the injury returns of Murphy, Ogilvie and Anderson long before January.
He added: ‘We didn’t really think of it until last January, when we had three players who potentially could have come into the fold there - Harvey Blair, Flo (Bianchini) and Josh Knight.
‘The way that went with some of the winger injuries towards the back end of the season, Murphy ended up being injured for longer than we expected, Keshi picked up an injury, then Gus (Caballero) picked up that injury as well.
‘So, at that point, it was really important that we had players and also the spots available. So we made the decision to register the two wingers over the centre-half.
‘At that stage, we had four or five fit centre-halves and Hayden Matthews didn’t count in the numbers because of his age, so we are continuing to work around that way.’
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