Portsmouth's 'open secret' is official - now Fratton faithful can judge the fuss for themselves

The 21-year-old arrives in England as a double A-League winner with Central Coast Mariners, approaching 100 club games, and international recognition with Australia under-23s.

Yet tonight’s friendly at MK Dons (7.30pm) offers the maiden opportunity for the Fratton faithful to see him in action.

Jack Sparkes’ departure for Peterborough leaves Ogilvie and Farrell battling it out for the left-back spot in the Championship.

And, having now received international clearance, Stadium MK will stage the Australian’s entrance in the Blues’ penultimate pre-season friendly.

Mousinho told The News: ‘Jacob has obviously been a long-time coming, it has been an open secret, we just had a few things to get over the line in terms of work permit and paperwork.

‘We are really excited to have Jacob in the building, he has a massive amount of pedigree from a winning perspective, the guy’s already had a lot of success in his career at such a young age.

‘He’s a very, very steady left-back with a lot of quality going forward as well. We’ve had a huge amount of positivity with Jacob in terms of our scouting over the last 12 months.

‘Jacob is different to Connor, but there are some similarities in the way that they play. Both are excellent defensively, both play left-sided centre-half, both can play at left-back, and, to be fair, last season we saw Connor has that ability to go forward as well.

‘That’s a real area of Jacob’s game he can develop. He’s not been a hugely expansive left-back in his career so far, but certainly that’s an area we are looking to develop.

‘At the moment there is a lot for him to get up to scratch with, he has been here and not been able to train, but can play in the next two friendlies.’

For the last three seasons, Ogilvie has served as Pompey’s first-choice left-back under Danny Cowley and then Mousinho.

Although the Blues’ League One title-winning head coach is adamant the spot is up for grabs heading into the Championship campaign.

He added: ‘Left-back will be a battle and we’ll have that all over the pitch.

‘I’ve always said everybody is competing for a starting spot at any time and I mean it. We saw that last season, when players have come in from seemingly nowhere and vice versa. Wycombe was another really good example, you can probably see all 11 places are up for grabs.

‘There's no such thing as a first choice. We have spots up for grabs, two weeks worth of training, two more games, and players have to do their best to stake a claim for that starting shirt - and once they do they have to keep it.’