Why Portsmouth new boy’s been left in cold as former Coventry City and Wolves man sits it out in league

But John Mousinho has told the new boy he feels he can still earn a spot in his midfield.

Stevenson has yet to even earn a berth on the Blues bench this term, after his summer arrival at Fratton Park.

That’s despite a decent pre-season from the 26-year-old, with Mousinho acknowledging he was unfortunate not to start the first game of the season against Bristol Rovers.

Stevenson has performed well in three cup starts to date, but Marlon Pack and Joe Morrell remain the favoured options for the defensive midfield positions.

Mousinho said: ‘Ben has been really unlucky.

‘He’s one of the players who was a good performer in pre-season.

‘He played really well in all of the games we asked him to play in and I think he was relatively unlucky not to start the first game of the season.

‘Marlon, Joe and whoever has filled in the middle of the park has really grown into the season.

‘Certainly the last couple of performances, Stevenage and Peterborough, Joe and Marlon were excellent in both of those.

‘They were probably our best two players, apart from maybe Abu in the first half at Stevenage. They really controlled that game and they controlled the game against Peterborough, too, playing close to each other.

‘That’s a difficult thing to try to break into for Ben.

‘He’s done himself every good in terms of his performances in the cup games he’s come in and played.

‘The conversation with Ben is he needs to be patient and wait for his chance to present itself. When it does he needs to take it.

‘Of course he’ll be disappointed not to have played a bit more - but there’s plenty of time left in the season.’

Mousinho explained he and his staff have eyes on the likes of Stevenson and those not in the starting XI, to see how they react to the challenges they face.

He added: ‘It’s a good challenge.

‘Ben is a diligent, young kid and he’s a great worker and trainer.

‘We watch all the players day in, day out and see how players work and react.

‘Ben has good players in front of him, he has good players to displace.

‘We’ve spoken about how good Marlon’s performances have been.

‘He’s not directly competing with him, but it could be a tough one when he comes in and Marlon’s been made club captain and played 600-plus games.

‘It’s good, stiff competition but the reason we brought Ben in was we knew he’d be able to compete for that spot.’