'Out of our control': Portsmouth boss on when Fratton faithful can expect transfer arrivals
Pompey signed Rob Atkinson and Isaac Hayden in the opening 10 days of the last January window
John Mousinho admits he ‘doesn’t have any expectation’ of a racing start to Pompey’s transfer business next month.
Instead the head coach anticipates the bulk of the Blues’ dealings being carried out later in the window as he targets up to six new faces.
A successful January window is essential if the strugglers are to remain in the Championship, with two wins from their last 11 fixtures leaving them one place above the relegation zone.
Last season Rob Atkinson joined on loan from Bristol City just three days into the window and proved to be a pivotal figure in the successful battle against the drop.
Yet this time around, Mousinho doesn’t believe there will be any early arrivals after the January 1 opening.
‘We are in a rush without being in a rush’
He told The News: ‘We don’t have any expectation of doing anything particularly early.
‘That just sets the wrong tone if we start talking about bringing players in during the first week and we don’t. People naturally start to wonder what’s going on.
‘A lot of the business that we’re going to be doing in January is effectively out of our control, i.e. waiting for players to become available if it’s a loan.
‘If it’s a permanent then inevitably there are negotiations on the club side and the player side, which go on for a lot longer than just being able to do something in the first couple of days in January.
‘Both parties have to get it right, we must make sure we bring the right players in and those players have to make the right decision as well.
‘So we are in a rush without being in a rush because we don’t want to panic, we don’t want to do the wrong thing. But, at the same time, we want to bring the right players in for the right moment.’
‘Rob Atkinson was an exception’
According to Mousinho, the loan arrival of Atkinson at the start of last January was ‘an exception’ to usual transfer window business.
Having been sidelined for 23 months after two operations on his knee following an ACL injury, the central defender was eager for the opportunity of regular first-team football.
With Atkinson and Mousinho also having been team-mates at Oxford United, the temporary transfer was ‘an easy one’, according to the Blues’ head coach.
The loanee subsequently featured 15 times and scored twice as Pompey secured Championship safety with two games to spare.
‘It was a fairly easy one to have lined up’
Mousinho added: ‘I guess Rob is an exception, he hadn’t played a minute of football in two years at that point.
‘When we played Bristol City on December 29, I spoke to their head coach Liam (Manning) and Chris (Hogg) and then Rich (Hughes) spoke to Brian Tinnion, their technical director. It was a fairly easy one to have lined up.
‘I then spoke to Rob, with Bristol City’s permission, but it is very, very rare that you have that level of alignment across clubs and across players that there’s going to be a player on January 1 - and also that this is the only place to come.’
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