Pompey boss John Mousinho's Blackpool preview

The News, Portsmouth

Pompey boss John Mousinho speaks to The News and discusses all the talking points ahead of Blackpool's visit to Fratton Park on Saturday.

Transcript

00:00 So John, back to football again this weekend after the break. How's the injuries among

00:06 the squad at the moment for Pompey?

00:07 Yeah we've obviously got quite a few at the moment and some have used that international

00:11 break to come back and recover, others are longer term and there's some that unfortunately

00:16 we've suffered over the international break. So in terms of the ones that have come back

00:20 and are recovering nicely, Marlon who was available for selection for the Charlton game

00:24 but we thought it was maybe one or two days too soon for him and we didn't want to force

00:27 him into any action that would cause him to have any setback, not just on the ankle

00:31 injury but probably more importantly everything else if we threw him back into competition.

00:35 So we decided to give him an extra game and the extra two weeks worth of training which

00:38 has been really beneficial but Marlon's back ready for action at the weekend. Tom Lowry

00:44 has been training as well, about 75% of training sessions he's got to so still a couple of

00:48 weeks away from being available. I think we're going to look at the EFL Trophy game to probably

00:53 reintegrate him back into the side if we can get him some minutes there. That seems about

00:57 the right time scale for us on that. Unfortunately on the flip side of that you would have seen

01:01 that Paddy Lane pulled out of the Northern Ireland squad on Monday, he had a scan on

01:04 his calf having felt it towards the back end of the game on Saturday and unfortunately

01:09 that revealed he's got a minor calf tear so he won't, well highly unlikely that he'll

01:14 feature at the weekend. It shouldn't be too long that he's out but just one of those

01:20 that we want to have a slight bit of precaution on. So yeah a bit of a shame with Paddy's

01:24 one. In terms of the longer term injuries, all progressing pretty nicely. Tino's back

01:29 with Chelsea under their stewardship at the moment, he's going to be sort of eight weeks

01:32 plus I think as a bare minimum. And then Regan Poole is due for surgery at the back end

01:38 of the month next week, just giving him an extra couple of weeks to make sure he can

01:41 build up the strength in his knee before he goes under ACL reconstruction which really

01:45 helps at the back end of everything in terms of the strength that he'll go into the operation

01:48 with. Josh Dock all progressing really nicely and on the positive side Anthony Scully's

01:53 been out on the grass doing really well and looking like he will return hopefully before

02:00 the turn of the year, if not we'll see him in January. With Paddy Lane then, what's the

02:04 time frame you're looking at with him being out? I think we're looking at a couple of

02:07 weeks on that so nothing major but one of those where towards the back end of the game

02:12 he thought he'd cramped up in his calf and we ended up bringing him off but we didn't

02:17 see there being any issue so he flew away with Northern Ireland and felt alright but

02:21 unfortunately the scan revealed a minor tear so we've got to be careful with him. He got

02:24 hit a few times in that second half against Charlton as well didn't he? Yeah and he was

02:27 excellent so it's a bit of a blow really to not have him available and one of those things

02:33 that we just have to get on with and thankfully nothing too major because I thought he was

02:40 really influential in the Charlton game. What's the options now with him missing from the

02:45 right wing? I think we've got plenty to be honest, that's probably Abu's natural position

02:49 obviously we've got Gavin White, Josh Martin coming into the fold now. That wasn't the

02:54 reason we brought Josh Martin in, we brought Josh in off the back of the Tino Anjou in

02:58 injury but we've got cover there as well so there's plenty of options in terms of what

03:03 we can do on the right and that's the whole point of having the squad and making sure

03:07 that we have players that can rotate into that spot. And Connor Ogilvie is there? Connor

03:11 Ogilvie is doing okay, he had a slight issue in terms of a reaction from a couple of injections

03:20 that he had, not an issue but just didn't quite react particularly well so monitoring

03:24 Connor and it's just taking slightly longer than we expected. The visit at Backport obviously

03:29 brings a familiar face in Owen Day back, you had him for half a season, what did you make

03:34 of him when he was here? I thought Owen was excellent when he was here, I think he was

03:38 slightly unlucky in terms of his total output, that was always the thing I think he spoke

03:42 about when he left as well, the one thing that disappointed him about his time here

03:46 in terms of goals and assists because he put in a huge amount of work every week, work

03:50 rate was right up there, created some really good quality moments and I think I said when

03:55 he left at the back end of last year, my thought was that especially if Blackpool went down

03:59 they're going to keep him, he's going to feature at this level and he has done. He was part

04:05 of the side that beat Shrewsby 4-0 last week, playing in a different position, playing at

04:09 left wing back and we expect to see him feature this weekend and we know that he's a real

04:13 threat. Was there ever a consideration to bring him back? At that point, the point Blackpool

04:18 got relegated we knew that he would be part of their plan so it wasn't something we explored.

04:22 You mentioned about his work rate, he gave everything and the fans took to him, it was

04:25 just the end product wasn't it? That was all it was and it's not for lack of quality with

04:30 Owen, we know he's a good player because we see him day in day out in training, his finishing,

04:34 his crossing is good. When he got going he was brilliant and sometimes he's probably

04:38 a victim of the fact that we didn't get enough bodies in the box in certain games towards

04:41 the back end of last year in particular where our real focus this year is to try and get

04:45 more people on the end of crosses when we do deliver the ball into the box. I thought

04:50 from day one Owen was excellent, works incredibly hard, really good young pro and he's got a

04:55 great future in the game. Do you think if he was in the current team then, bearing in

04:58 mind he's trying to get more bodies in the box, it will benefit him more this season

05:01 than last season? I think so and a lot of players have improved I think from last year

05:05 as well so I'm sure Owen would have been one of those. The fact that he's now back at Blackpool

05:10 with a side that want to compete at the top end of this league and he's playing games

05:13 tells me that he has improved as well and it's no surprise to me, I was convinced at

05:18 the back end of last year that this would happen and it's no surprise to me that he's

05:21 now featuring in the league one side that's doing well. Thank you very much.

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