Portsmouth boss John Mousinho addresses cruel Regan Poole blow - and Ibane Bowat injury fear
The former Manchester United and Lincoln defender is the Blues’ latest injury set-back
Pompey are reeling after Regan Poole became the latest addition to their ever-lengthening injury list.
While John Mousinho also revealed the centre-half replacement - Ibane Bowat - played through the pain in the south-coast derby with a back problem, prompting his substitution in the second half.
A groin injury sustained against Watford prevented Poole facing Southampton in this afternoon's eventful 1-1 draw.
Although named on the bench, the Blues’ head coach insists the former Manchester United man would have only been called up in case of an emergency.
As it was, Poole was unused in the Fratton Park encounter - and Pompey are waiting to discover the full extent of his injury.
‘We can’t really afford losing him’
Mousinho told The News: ‘Regan felt his groin on Wednesday night after about 20 minutes and played through.
‘He tried to strap himself up and train on Saturday, but it just wasn’t happening. He wanted to play - and we had an honest conversation about what that looked like. Once we did take him out of the team, I think there was probably a bit of relief there because he was ready to try to play.
‘First of all it was about the game itself, making sure we had players that were ready to go and were fit. Secondly, it was about protecting Regan, because we can’t really afford losing him to a long-term injury.
‘We named him on the bench because we thought that, if we needed him for five minutes, he would be available. We shuffled things around with the back quite late.
‘I have absolutely no idea if he will make West Brom. We did things in a very short-term manner for Southampton, so we’ll see what that looks like and go from there.’
11 Pompey players out injured
Including Poole, the Blues now have 11 players unavailable through injury: Conor Shaughnessy, Franco Umeh, Harvey Blair, Mark Kosznovszky, Hayden Matthews, Josh Murphy, Callum Lang, Florian Bianchini, Josh Knight and Thomas Waddingham.
In his absence, Bowat partnered Zak Swanson in the centre of defence, with Connor Ogilvie moving to left-back.
Ogilvie and Poole had been the Blues’ centre-half pairing in Wednesday night’s 1-1 draw at Watford, both performing impressively, yet that was ripped up on Sunday.
Bowat was replaced by Jordan Williams in the 66th minute against Southampton, with Pompey trailing to Leo Scienza’s opener six minutes earlier.
Yet they fought back to claim a 1-1 draw with Ebou Adams netting on his Fratton Park debut 13 minutes from time following an Adrian Segecic corner.
‘We just have to protect Bowat’
And afterwards, Mousinho explained the extent of Bowat’s injury issues after the eighth start of his Fratton Park career.
Mousinho added: ‘Bowat is carrying a back injury, so he was getting through that as well. We had to properly wheel him out.
‘We just had to protect Bowat, trying to keep him mobile at half-time. I thought I could see from where we were as the game went on he was struggling a bit.’