'We are not naive': John Mousinho on Portsmouth transfer latest after left with no fit centre-halves
The Blues presently have five central defenders injured, including one who face Southampton on Sunday
In the space of 58 days, Pompey have lost five central defenders through injury.
Now John Mousinho is weighing up whether to now recruit two centre-halves in the transfer window before the February 2 deadline.
Since Josh Knight was initially diagnosed with a back issue following a home defeat to Bristol City at the end of November, the injuries have piled up in the position.
Subsequently Hayden Matthews (ankle) and Regan Poole (groin) have been sidelined, while Conor Shaughnessy returned from a hamstring problem and is now out again with a quad injury.
In addition, Ibane Bowat managed 66 minutes in Sunday’s 1-1 draw with Southampton, yet had to be taken off with an ongoing back issue.
It meant the Blues finished the south-coast derby with three right-backs and one left-back forming the back four.
And Mousinho admits he has some big transfer decisions to make.
‘We are not naive of the situaiton’
He told The News: ‘We have one fit centre-half - Ibane. So maybe not even that now!
‘There’s me, but Zesh (Rehman) has gone now. So that partnership you saw for Alan Knight’s charity football match is no longer here either. You won’t see me playing again, though, that isn’t going to happen!
‘We are not naive to the situation, we know we need more bodies there, but we can’t just have a magic wand and bring somebody in. Some things feel close, some things feel really far away and we are waiting on clubs.
‘Looking at it back in December, initially there was a real prospect of Shocks coming back in, we had Hayden fit, Ibane fit and Regan playing. Josh Knight was okay at that point, we didn't think his back injury would be too bad - so we weren’t going to sign any centre-halves.
‘Then we’ve had Josh with a poor prognosis of his back, Hayden took the tackle at Bristol City, Shocks has come back and got injured - and now we’re down to Regan and Ibane.
‘It’s a real moving feast at the minute. We were always looking at one, we'll have to see the extent of Regan’s injury and Shock’s news today.
‘Shocks is going to see a specialist. He’s still feeling okay, but it’s to discover whether the scan results match up.
‘Hayden should be about six weeks, while Josh has a stress fracture of his back, so it’s unclear as to when he’s going to return. We’ll just have to monitor Josh as we go along.’
Tom McIntyre, whose scheduled season-long loan at Bradford was cut short by the Bantams, is not under consideration.
Should he play for Pompey, that would mean he has featured for two clubs this season, rendering him unable to move to another club on loan or permanently in the January window.
In the meantime, Bowat and Zak Swanson started as the centre-half pairing against Southampton - and the match finished with Swanson and Jordan Williams occupying the positions.
Nonetheless, Mousinho was delighted with how his patched-up defence fared.
‘Fair play, that is some effort this week’
He added: ‘That was Swanny’s first-ever start at centre-half, although he had played there for about 15 minutes against Blackburn when we had similar problems.
‘He has adapted to playing left-back, as an eight, and then going in at centre-half against a Premier League player in the first half (Adam Armstrong) and up against Ross Stewart in the second half, who is a really good Championship player.
‘Connor Ogilvie as well, he’s started three games in a week, having not played since November. Fair play to the lads, that is some effort this week.
‘Also, a nice option for us was the fact we had Willo (Jordan Williams) in behind, who came on and did really well. He’ll want to start every game, but, at the minute, he is playing a pivotal role for us.’