'It was always difficult': Portsmouth boss' Alexander Milosevic admission after ill-fated Fratton Park stay

The former Swedish international was recruited on a free transfer in March to bolster the Blues’ central defensive options.

With Hayden Matthews, Conor Shaughnessy and Rob Atkinson sidelined by injury, Pompey turned to the 33-year-old free agent, who had last featured in November for AIK.

However, the Blues could never quite bring up to speed in terms of fitness and, on the eve of a potential debut against Coventry last month, Milosevic sustained a calf problem in training, ruling him out for the remainder of the season.

Now, as one of seven players out of contract this summer, the Swede is waiting to discover whether Pompey will be offering a new deal.

Mousinho told The News: ‘Alex has been really unlucky. He wanted to play, we wanted him to play, but unfortunately it didn’t work out.

‘We thought it was the best thing to do - and if you gave me the option to do that again I would do exactly the same thing.

‘We actually had a conversation after the Millwall game about whether we would play him at centre-half for Coventry, we thought it would be a good introduction for him.

‘We’d had a couple of defensive issues, I thought we lost too many headers against Millwall to warrant winning the game, so let’s get the dominant centre-half in. Unfortunately Alex pulled up after the Millwall game while doing his work.

‘The one thing I would say about Alex is he hasn’t set foot on the pitch, but he’s been a big influence around the place. Having an international here, having that calm head and still being involved, we are very, very grateful for that.

‘When we were looking at signing him, we asked the board for extra funds and the answer was: “Absolutely you do what you need to do” - as it always is. That was over and above the budget.

‘However, our take to them was that it might be wasted, we might get through the rest of the season without needing to use this player. But we’re bringing a player in to use him if we can.

‘It wasn’t like we paid a fee, we just needed an extra body, we needed someone who we knew would be good if he came in and played. Unfortunately Alex got injured, but there was nothing lost from our standpoint.’

Pompey boss on why it was difficult bringing Milosevic ‘Up to scratch’

The injured Milosevic was present at Fratton Park on Saturday as Pompey’s Championship season ended with a 1-1 draw with Hull.

Now back from injury, Atkinson and Shaughnessy have formed the centre-half partnership in the final two matches, with the likelihood the Swede wouldn’t have been required by that stage anyway.

Still, Mousinho believes bringing him in represented the sensible option at the time.

He added: ‘We actually brought him to play, but it was always difficult to get him up to scratch as quickly as we would have liked.

‘He hadn’t played any games since November, yet we actually felt we’d got him into a good position and I was really thinking about playing him against Coventry.

‘We could have done nothing - because we knew what the risk was - and the outcome would have been the same.’

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