'We have to protect him': Portsmouth boss on why goal hero may not start against Northampton

John Mousinho remains cautious about letting Callum Lang off the leash.

And Pompey’s head coach admits he is weighing up keeping the new recruit on the bench against Northampton.

It took the Wigan recruit seven minutes into his Blues bow to make his mark, by assisting Colby Bishop’s leveller at Oxford United.

Then he capped an eye-catching debut with an excellent 80th-minute finish to leave the travelling Fratton faithful wanting to see more.

Indeed, Lang’s energetic and attacking display was an undoubted high point in a match which suffered the agony of Pompey conceding a last-gasp equaliser.

Now Northampton are to visit Fratton Park - although Mousinho has doubts whether to start the 25-year-old.

He told The News: ‘I’m not sure whether Callum is ready to start, physically it’s an interesting one.

‘We always had him earmarked for half-an-hour at Oxford, that was just about the most we could get out of him.

‘He hasn’t been involved in a huge amount with Wigan over the last few weeks, so we’ve just got to be careful with that. Adrenaline can get you through a debut, but we have to make sure we protect him from risk of injury.

‘I think starting him at the weekend (Northampton) may be a step too far. You have to be careful.

‘He loves running, he’s really energetic, he runs forward, he plays with a huge amount of endeavour as well, he gets involved with tackles, headers, all these sorts of things.

‘I have to keep an eye on all of that and protect him from himself. Players want to play every minute of every day and we have to protect him. It’s a real dilemma.

‘We have some really good attacking options and are leaving really good players out of the squad who we think can still impact us for the rest of the season.

‘It’s very, very tough to select a squad at the moment and very tough to select a team.’

Pompey switched to a back three when Lang was introduced in the 62nd minute for Terry Devlin at Oxford.

The change saw him handed an attacking role on the right behind Coly Bishop in a 3-4-2-1 system.

Mousinho added: ‘Callum runs forward, he’s a threat in the box, I genuinely think he can play across the front four and have an impact.

‘He played as a right-sided 10 when he came on against Oxford. Even if he operated as a right-sided midfielder, he would be popping up in those positions anyway. 

‘If you look at the second goal, he comes from pretty centrally on the left-hand and ends up on that side of the box with his right.

‘The assist was different, he was arriving late for Abu’s cut-back. It’s his versatility, I don’t think you can pigeonhole players into any specific positions at this time.’