Pompey v Reading: John Mousinho's pre-match verdict

The News, Portsmouth

John Mousinho talks to The News ahead of Pompey's home game against Reading at Fratton Park - providing an update on Tom Lowery's injury

Transcript

00:00 So we've had the results of Tom's hamstring scan, he's got a grade 2c tear. The reason

00:11 we are going to just reserve on timescale at the moment is because Tom's going to see

00:15 a specialist on Wednesday. The issue with Tom at the moment is just the location of

00:19 the tear rather than the severity of the tear itself so we've got to make sure that we're

00:22 careful with that and I think once we've spoken to the specialist on Wednesday we'll have

00:26 much more of an update and I think that'll be probably after the Charleston game before

00:29 we know too much more. I appreciate you can't put a timescale on him but will he play again

00:32 this season do you think? I don't know, hopefully he will. I think certainly the immediate prognosis

00:38 for us is he came in the next day, he was walking, he did have his hamstrings trapped

00:41 up but he wasn't in a huge amount of discomfort, he wasn't on crutches or anything like that

00:45 so hopefully he'll be able to, yeah. And it's not like Tino and Jürgen? No, different from

00:52 both, I think they both had a grade 4 so very different. Not that I know the ins and outs

00:56 of all the grading system in terms of the tears but it's not quite the same. So you'll

01:00 find out with that one anyway? Yeah so we will find out and as with all the injuries

01:04 yeah we don't 100% know yet so we don't want to speculate on anything, we'll know Wednesday

01:08 and I think the next time we speak to you guys after that will be the Saturday. So Reading

01:12 and Trotten Park this weekend, they've read it in recent weeks haven't they? Yeah they're

01:16 a good side, I think they've been in very very good form over the last 6-8 games and

01:21 a team that from the start of the season I think they recruited really well, they dealt

01:24 with the points deduction and picked up a few wins quite early, they've now really dragged

01:28 themselves away from the relegation zone and with everything they've been dealing with

01:31 off the pitch as well I think that's been a real positive for them, particularly with

01:34 January having to sell quite a few players so a really really good side. I think coached

01:38 by a head coach who was in the Premier League last year so we should expect a really good

01:41 game of football and we've got to make sure that we're right on top of our game. It was

01:45 an up and down game wasn't it at their place earlier in the season, I'll tell you when

01:49 it was. I think that showed how dangerous Reading can be, we switched off for the first

01:52 half an hour, we went two goals down, I think we had some of the distractions of what was

01:56 going on off the pitch with all the tennis balls but I think our players should have

01:58 been a bit more professional on the day and have dealt with it a bit better than they

02:01 did so going two down wasn't the best thing I think but obviously we went into half time

02:06 at 2-2 and then managed to put in a pretty solid display in the second half to win the

02:09 game 3-2 and I think all that game goes to show is how good Reading were on the day and

02:13 how good they are now, they've improved since then, I know we've changed sides since then

02:16 but we've got to make sure that we are right at it. Do you think the promotion race now

02:20 is beginning to fragment now because they're falling away? I'm not sure because there's

02:27 still sides with plenty of games in hand and things can change really quickly, if you take

02:31 Peter for example they've still got games in hand, they haven't been able to play a

02:34 couple of games that have been called off over the past few weeks so I think there's

02:38 still plenty in that and I think what a side like Barnsley have shown is that even though

02:42 they were probably out of it a few weeks ago all of a sudden they've pushed themselves

02:45 into that, into the spot they're in now, I think they're fourth at the moment so there's

02:50 plenty to play for I think. In terms of what's going on underneath us at the minute, we look

02:54 after the games obviously, we look at the results and we look at how everyone's done

02:57 but at the minute in the build-ups of the games there's nothing we can do about any

03:00 of those, it doesn't really concern us, we've just got to make sure that we focus on what

03:03 we can do. Do you prefer points on the board rather than games in hand? Yeah definitely

03:07 I think points on the board at this stage of the season in terms of where we are is

03:10 the position we'd like to be in, I think there's a couple of reasons, first of all you've got

03:13 the points and second of all I think the fixture congestion towards the back end of the season

03:18 for us we've got a bit more of a luxury in terms of having a few free weeks where we

03:22 can certainly put a bit more training into the lads and also just come off them physically

03:26 a bit if we need to because of the severity of the game schedule they had over Christmas

03:30 and New Year and that was something we weren't able to do so obviously other sides had postponements

03:34 and didn't have games but we had game after game over Christmas and New Year and that

03:38 was something that I think we dealt with okay but from a squad perspective I think it would

03:43 be nice to have those Saturday to Saturday games. With Tom Larrick early out, are you

03:46 presuming that's Owen Moxham will come in? Owen's definitely an option, we've got other

03:52 options in there, obviously we didn't think that Owen was quite ready to start on Tuesday

03:55 night and the other options we do have in terms of being able to bring Miles into that

04:00 position, he's played there quite a bit through his career so far particularly last year for

04:03 Forest Green, Connor Shotner-Sea for Burton for the majority of last season when he was

04:08 fit played in the middle of the park and he played there at Fratton Park as well, Connor

04:11 Vogelby had a stint there for us against Fleetwood although I don't think that's his best position

04:15 and then the one player that we're going to have returning next week, I don't think to

04:18 full fitness but returning to training next week in Zach Swanson I think he'll be more

04:21 than comfortable playing in the middle of the park but in the immediate term I think

04:24 you're looking at the four that I mentioned prior to Zach. Any fresh injuries since Tuesday

04:29 apart from Tom? No nothing, Tom was the major injury concern obviously on Tuesday but everybody's

04:34 come through everything on Wednesday morning and trained again today so really happy with

04:38 that. Thank you.

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