Back after 5 agonising months - but realistic Portsmouth boss warns Fratton faithful over huge favourite

Nonetheless, Pompey’s head coach has warned it is essential that much-missed Conor Shaughnessy is eased into his first-team comeback.

A squad presence at the Hawthorns on Saturday is presently the best-case scenario for the centre-half as the Blues eye a first outing since August.

Realistically, Mousinho believes the clash with Burnley on February 1 may be a more accurate comeback date for Shaughnessy.

Certainly Pompey will be handling the ex-Leeds man with care, planning to follow the same first-team pathway to fitness as Rob Atkinson.

Mousinho told The News: ‘West Brom is probably that best-case scenario and Burnley is February, so that is the one we are really looking at.

‘Although we have to ease him in. He would have been out for almost six months altogether, so we really have to ease him in, like we have with Rob (Atkinson).

‘Maybe Conor is slightly ahead of schedule, which is why I am hesitant to say it. I don’t want to come here and say anything otherwise.

‘We have good grounds to be optimistic about him coming back and maybe being involved, but I think everybody will be patient around it. It’s just probably good to know he’s back in full training and looking good.

‘He looks strong, he looks fit, although we haven't trained a huge amount because of the amount of games we’ve had.

‘The last time we had a full training week was in the build-up to the Coventry game. After that it has been game after game after game and it’s quite difficult to get a proper training session.

‘We obviously do everything we possibly can to make sure the boys are topped up with their fitness, especially the ones that aren’t playing. But Conor has come back into the group and looks good.’

In the case of Atkinson, the left-sided centre-half hadn’t featured in first-team football for 22 months before joining Pompey on loan.

Since then the Blues have been gently easing him into the side over the last four matches, albeit not yet completing a full 90 minutes.

Although that could change with Stoke visiting Fratton Park on Wednesday evening (7.45pm).

Mousinho added: ‘We had the good fortune in a lot of ways to be able to bring Rob on for his debut at Sunderland and he got 22 minutes there.

‘Then there was the FA Cup game, when we knew we were going to take him off at the half-time mark. It was a bit of a fitness exercise for him because we just wanted to make sure that he wasn’t injured.

‘We’ve now brought up his minutes. We probably would have liked a bit of extra rest in between a couple of the games, but we will see how Rob is.’