Portsmouth rivals provide key update on club captain ahead of Fratton Park visit

Pompey will host their League One and now Championship rivals Oxford United to Fratton Park this weekend, following the midweek clash against Stoke City.

While the Blues are contending with several key injury concerns of their own - including Conor Shaughnessy, Colby Bishop, Kusini Yengi and Callum Lang - the Us are set to face a huge dilemma of their own. In Tuesday’s 2-2 draw at Luton Town, club captain Elliott Moore was replaced in stoppage time after feeling a knock on his knee.

An immediate decision was made by the Us manager Des Buckingham to replace Moore with Sam Long. The 27-year-old has already picked up one knee injury which forced him to miss two Championship games against Blackburn Rovers and Stoke City prior to the September international break.

With that concern in mind, the Us boss confirmed after the match that Moore’s substitution was more precautionary and there appears no immediate concern that their captain will miss the upcoming trip down to the south coast.

“He just felt his knee, and he obviously missed a couple of games earlier on”, Buckingham confirmed. “We had Sam Long and for the first time in a long time, we had substitute up our sleeve to be able to use. It just made sense to get Sam on. You don’t want to take a risk in the last couple of minutes. We’ve seen how ruthless this league can be, so to have a fully fit Sam Long on the bench, it just made sense to replace him.”

When coming up against the Us on Saturday, Blues winger Josh Murphy is set to be reunited with his former side just over four months after helping them secure promotion in the League One play-off finals at the end of May.

The ex-Oxford star won the Man of the Match award for his efforts in London back in May but he will now be tasked with taking three points off his former club as Pompey head coach John Mousinho praised the 29-year-old by saying: “I really think the most exciting thing is that, whenever he picks up the ball, it gets bums off seats and he’s going to make something happen - and that’s a really good trait to have.

‘We know the goals will flow from Josh, he’s been very close to a couple with the runs he makes getting in behind the full-back. He did it on Saturday, he did it against West Brom, he’s close to getting onto the end of one and putting the ball into the back of the net, like he did in the play-off final for Oxford.’