Portsmouth boss responds to those playing blame game over shocking injury list

John Mousinho believes there’s little Pompey could’ve done to avoid being hit with a tidal wave of season-ending injuries.

And the Blues boss is adamant the homework was carried out when assessing the fitness record of the players brought in throughout his tenure.

Mousinho’s squad is reeling from the triple loss of Joe Morrell, Terry Devlin and Tom McIntyre for the season, which was confirmed yesterday.

The latest development arrives on top of Regan Poole and Alex Robertson’s campaigns being curtailed, after making huge impacts this term.

In the case of the latest trio to be ruled out every injury took place on the pitch, with Regan Poole injuring his knee against Chesterfield in November and Alex Robertson tearing his hamstring in training at the start of the year.

Data shows the extent of serious injuries is unmatched in League One this season, but Mousinho feels inspection of what’s unfolded shows it’s poor fortune rather than being poorly prepared behind the setbacks.

He said: ‘My answer (to anyone being critical of the injury list) would be we take every injury individually, and look at the circumstances around every one.

‘In terms of the three which happened this week I’d say look at the games. They’ve all happened in games and if you want those players to do anything different let me know, but I certainly wouldn’t. I want players going into challenges honestly trying to win the ball.

‘Barring sitting Joe (Morrell) on the bench for 90 minutes there’s little we can do, because it’s really innocuous. He was running into our box and felt his knee.

‘If they’d been muscular off the back of travelling to Fleetwood, Port Vale and then Oxford we’d have looked at something, but Joe has been really robust for us. He’s hardly missed any football.

‘People can have a good, old think about it but some of the more conscientious fans will know it’s just one of those things this year. We’ve had a bit of bad luck.’

As well as the five senior players whose season is over, Pompey have also lost a host of other players for up to five months this term.

The tale of woe reads Connor Ogilvie (five months), Tom Lowery (five months), Anthony Scully (four months), Tino Anjorin (three months and counting), Kusini Yengi (two months), Marlon Pack (two months) and Zak Swanson (two months and counting).

Mousinho feels, in the majority of cases, players haven’t been recruited with a history of injuries.

He added: ‘Injury records are something we’d be keen to look into.

‘If you look at the injury records of players we’ve brought in our focus will be has there been any meniscus damage? Has there been muscular injuries or a record of breaking down in certain areas?

‘If you look at the injuries we’ve had this week that would be completely irrelevant to what we’ve just seen. We’ve just seen three freak injuries with nothing to do with what has happened in the past whatsoever.

‘We’d look in those things and none of that is lost on us, but it’s happened nothing to do with what we’ve seen this week and, for the most part, this season. Barring a couple, I’d say injury histories have had nothing to do with it.’