Portsmouth injuries: Six first-teamers hand John Mousinho boost with another closing in on welcome return

Six of the nine players unavailable for last weekend’s pre-season double against Gosport and the Hawks at one stage or another because of injury or illness were involved in the Blues’ behind-closed-doors friendly win against Crawley.

Recent signing Regan Poole was also available as he enjoyed his first outing in a Pompey shirt – as was Terry Devlin, who sat out the previous Friday and Saturday’s games for personal reasons.

The Blues, however, are still coming to terms with the loss of youngster Josh Dockerill, who is out for the season after suffering an ACL injury in the win at Privett Park. Meanwhile, no update was provided on Denver Hume (groin), who is expect to leave the club this summer.

Nevertheless, with the season-opener against Bristol Rovers less than two weeks away, Pompey look to be in a position where they can step up their pre-season preparations knowing that the vast majority of their players are fit.

And that includes Joe Rafferty, who sat out the 9-1 win against Crawley but is closing in on a full return to training.

Providing an update on Colby Bishop (ankle), Kusini Yengi (ankle), Gavin White (illness), Tom Lowery (groin), Christian Saydee (ankle) and Conor Shaughnessy (ankle), Mousinho said: ‘I think everybody’s back to full fitness apart from Joe Rafferty who trained Friday and trained with the training group on Saturday morning.

‘He will, if all goes well, feature on Tuesday night against AFC Wimbledon, so he’s the last one to come back and hopefully it looks like we haven’t picked any injuries up (Saturday).

‘Touch wood, we’ll see what the report is from the medical staff but hopefully we’ve got through that as well and the lads have got another good of fitness in the tank.

‘Things are much more encouraging and it did look a but thin last week as we had the five lads who were out, but we were protecting them.

‘They’ve all trained this week fully. We were careful with Regan (Poole) and Gavin Whyte just coming back into the fold. They missed Tuesday’s session deliberately but did Monday, Wednesday and Friday and, yeah, everyone has come back pretty strong.

‘Colby has trained all week, Conor Shaughnessy has trained all week, Tom Lowery has trained all week and so Joe Rafferty is the last one to come back into the fold.’

Pompey continue their pre-season preparations with a trip to League Two AFC Wimbledon on Tuesday night, before hosting Championship Bristol City at Fratton Park on Saturday.

Their 2023-24 League One season-opener against Bristol Rovers follows a week later on Saturday, August 5.