‘You can see the lift it’s given everyone’: Portsmouth handed big Tom Lowery boost with injury news on former Arsenal man and outlook on rest of sidelined players

Tom Lowery has handed Pompey an injury boost.

Tom Lowery has returned to first-team training with Pompey.

And boss John Mousinho believes the midfielder is closing in on being available for selection after his injury hell.

Lowery has linked up with his Blues team-mates at their Roko base in Hilsea this week.

It means the midfielder can now begin to look towards putting his five months of hamstring frustration to bed, after a promising start to his Fratton career.

Mousinho told of the boost Lowery’s presence has not just given himself, but also his Pompey team-mates this week.

But the Pompey boss will err on the side of caution with the former Crewe man, after previously breaking down when he returned in November.

Mousinho said: ‘In terms of injuries we’re getting back, Tom Lowery has been training with the first team not full contact.

‘But Tom has been back in and around which is great. and you can see the lift that has given everyone to see a player of his quality and such a popular guy to be out there involved.

‘I think Tom’s still a couple of weeks away and we need to be very careful about reintegrating him into the side.’

Meanwhile, there’s plenty of other positive injury news elsewhere with Zak Swanson training today after a groin injury kept him out against Barnsley last weekend.

Ronan Curtis is recovering well from an ankle issue picked up at Fleetwood, while Clark Robertson (groin) and Jay Mingi (knee) are making decent progress.

Mousinho added: ‘Zak is good and trained relatively pain free today, so we’ll see if everything settles down tomorrow.

‘If it does that’s great and he’ll be in contention for the weekend.

‘The longer-term injuries, Ronan, Jay and Clark are all out on the grass.

‘They have been for a couple of weeks now with a bit of grasswork and a bit of ballwork.

‘Ronan is the closest of the three to coming back, hopefully next week, then Clark and Jay are weeks rather than months.

‘By weeks we’re looking at Clark to be back at the end of February and Jay following a couple of weeks afterwards.’