Portsmouth's shining star earns John Mousinho backing after Pride Park pain

Nonetheless, John Mousinho is convinced the Northern Irishman will benefit from his Pride Park learning curve after suffering a painful off-day.

The 21-year-old was substituted at half-time of Friday night’s match against Derby, with Nathaniel Mendez-Laing having given the right-back a torrid time.

Devlin wasn’t alone, with Matt Ritchie also withdrawn at the interval with the Blues trailing 3-0 and battling to avoid a landslide defeat.

Regardless, there has been plenty to like about Devlin since returning to the first-team in October, winning multiple man-of-the-match awards in the process.

But Mousinho expects the youngster to bounce straight back.

Pompey’s head coach told The News: ‘There’s no issue, Terry and Matt have been fantastic over the past few weeks, there have been some stand-out performances from the pair of them.

‘I just felt it was the right thing to do at half-time and replace the pair of them, it was trying to shuffle things up, get a bit of freshness in there.

‘We wanted to change things, with Christian (Saydee) holding the ball up in the middle a bit more, we know the ball sticks when it goes into him and that was the thought. There is absolutely no problem with Terry and Matt.

‘There’s a stigma in football about getting subbed off at half-time and I was the same as a player. It is what it is, we move on, it won’t affect anything going into the next few weeks in terms of the football we are playing and we’ll get on with it.

‘Terry came up against a really good winger and it was a tough 45 minutes for everyone. I don’t think that Terry was the only one we could have brought off at half-time - or Matt - we probably could have made 11 subs.

‘It’s a learning curve for Terry, it was one of those days. I don’t think anyone was performing well enough to justify their position on the pitch in the second half.

‘But we will dust ourselves off and go again on Saturday.’

Zak Swanson replaced Devlin at right-back as the match finished 4-0, with Marlon Pack’s own goal sealing the outcome.

And thankfully former Pompey loanee Mendez-Laing was substituted in the 66th minute to prevent any further damage.

Mousinho added: ‘Mendez-Laing is a good player, but we did it (coped with him) last season to decent-enough effect.

‘There is a step up, but there’s a player we played against last season, so we have to be better.’