Portsmouth boss’ message to defender’s critics as former Norwich City and Lincoln City man takes central role in promotion bid

John Mousinho is adamant Sean Raggett can embrace his expansive Pompey philosophy after a strong return to the first-team fray.

And the Blues boss has aired his belief the long-serving figure continues to be unfairly labelled as agricultural because of his defensive strength.

Raggett has come back into the first-team fray in the past three league games, as a result of the blow of Regan Poole’s season-ending knee injury. 

The 29-year-old has undoubtedly been among his side’s most impressive performers in that time, in a campaign in which he’d previously made just one League One start.

The emergence of Poole and Conor Shaughnessy had much to do with that lack of action, as the pair played central roles in Pompey’s table-topping form.

Mousinho believes Raggett has shown he can operate in expansive fashion, however, with suggestions to the contrary proved to be wide of the mark.

He said: ‘I think so (Raggett  gets labelled).  Look at the way he’s played when he’s been in the side - I’ve got no problems at all with putting Sean in and trusting him with the way we play.

‘He’s a very, very different player to anything else we’ve got, he’s got different attributes. But it’s quite funny actually, if you look at the Mic’d up piece we did in a session you can see how progressive and how attacking he is. You can actually see how good he can be on the ball as well.

‘So there’s no real issues with it. Yes, we do want Sean to play to his strengths, but we do feel he can fit in with the way we want to play football.’

Raggett looks certain to continue in the heart of defence, as Pompey go to Northampton tomorrow looking to return to the top of League One. He will be expected to show the stoic qualities he’s come to be associated with in his four years at PO4, against an improving Cobblers side.

Mousinho feels those powerful attributes are perhaps why some see Raggett as a player who doesn’t have ball-playing and attacking qualities.

He added: ‘Sean is one of the top in the league in terms of percentage wins for aerial battles. He brilliantly defends his own box and is quick, much quicker than you’d be led to believe.

‘You just associate excellent defensive capabilities all round with Sean. But what we’ve seen, certainly over the past 10 months since the first game I came in, is I looked at the side I had and thought we could still play from the back through Matt (Macey, Sean and Ryley (Towler).

‘We still trusted him to do that, so I would certainly think it’s unfair to label him as that (someone who can’t play from the back).’