Portsmouth boss John Mousinho offers encouraging injury outlook on Jordan Williams

John Mousinho is convinced Pompey are now ‘in a good place’ with injury-plagued Jordan Williams.

It has been a difficult first year on the south coast for the ex-Barnsley right-back, having mustered just 22 appearances and been sidelined by four separate injury spells.

The 25-year-old didn’t even finish the season in the Blues squad, with a third successive hamstring tear ruling him out of the final two matches.

Damningly, he never started more than two successive games after October 22, thereby opening the door for Zak Swanson and Terry Devlin to flourish.

Now Williams is back, over his latest hamstring issue having followed a close-season fitness programme and returned to full training in pre-season, albeit missing Wednesday’s session as a precaution.

And Mousinho is hopeful Pompey have finally resolved the full-back’s frustrating injury woes.

Portsmouth boss: We are constantly keeping an eye on him

He told The News: ‘Jordan is fine, he had trained every single session during pre-season before Wednesday.

‘We are constantly keeping an eye on him, monitoring him, making sure we try to strengthen him as much as possible - but we think we’re in a good place with Jordan.

‘We can be precautionary through pre-season and try to double him up, but Jordan had a really solid pre-season last year as well, he came off the back of playing 52 games for Barnsley in 2023-24.

‘So there were no real signs we were signing a player who was struggling with injury and, unfortunately, just hasn’t been able to stay fit.

‘It has been a tough one, when we've felt we’ve been in a good position with Jordan, something has happened.

‘The period which really sticks out in my mind was when we played Middlesbrough and Stoke in January - he started both games - and we thought it was a risk starting him in the West Brom match. So we didn’t.

‘However, we wanted to get minutes into him because we didn’t want him to stagnate going into the Millwall game on Tuesday night - and unfortunately he came in against West Brom and injured himself.’

Three hamstring injuries

Williams’ most recent hamstring set-back occurred in the second half against Watford - the match which would seal Championship safety.

That represented a period of five appearances in six games for the right-back in his latest injury return, of which four were starts.

Nonetheless, Williams helped Pompey to priceless wins over Norwich and Watford over the Easter weekend - and Mousinho doesn’t regret involving him again so readily.

‘Definitely a decision I would make again’

He added: ‘It was definitely a decision I would make again.

‘At the back end of the season, we felt we were in a really good spot with Jordan and, unfortunately, he did it late on against Watford.

‘By the way, we didn’t know it at the time, we didn’t know he wasn’t quite right, yet it wouldn’t have made an ounce of difference to my decision-making.

‘He played against Norwich - and did really well - then against Watford, helping us collect six points out of the Easter weekend. We just have to make sure we stay on top of it.’

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