Ex-West Ham and Charlton man to make long-awaited Portsmouth comeback in strong side for Bournemouth cup clash
Jay Mingi will make his Pompey playing comeback as John Mousinho pledges a strong line-up at Bournemouth.
The Blues travel to Dean Court on Tuesday night (7pm) in the quarter-finals of the Hampshire Senior Cup.
The previous round was a 5-0 success at Andover New Street in December for the Blues, utilising Academy players plus third-year scholar Alfie Bridgman.
However, with Bournemouth now forming the opposition, Mousinho’s team selection will primarily focus on granting minutes to first-team fringe players and those returning from injury.
That puts Mingi in the frame, having been sidelined with medial knee ligament damage since the turn of the year.
Indeed, Danny Cowley was still head coach the last time the 22-year-old featured for the Blues on New Year’s Day against Charlton.
Since then he has been absent for 17 games, including all of Mousinho’s reign so far, but has recently returned to training to push for a recall.
In addition, Clark Robertson, Denver Hume, Tom Lowery, Kieron Freeman, Josh Oluwayemi and Harry Jewitt-White are expected to feature.
Although Premier League Bournemouth are also likely to name a strong side in the bid for a semi-final spot.
Mousinho told The News: ‘We will be taking a pretty strong side there and one of the reasons for that is we have a number of players that could do with competitive minutes.
‘We have spoken to Bournemouth about how competitive we’re going to make it and will both put out pretty strong sides, so it’s a good, competitive game.
‘Sometimes in these matches you can send out youth teams, but we have so many players currently looking for minutes, Bournemouth offers a good opportunity to get them that.
‘I want it as close to a first-team game as possible, so those who haven’t featured over the past 3-4 games will find themselves starting on Tuesday,
‘It’s a really good one for Jay (Mingi), the first minutes he would have played in quite a while, and match fitness is a really important thing.
‘With Clark having come off the bench on Saturday, this is also a chance for him to play around 75-90 minutes, plus a couple of others who aren’t in the squad at present.’
Promising second-year scholars Josh Dockerill and Adam Payce will also be in the squad, having both appeared in the previous round.
In addition, first-year scholars Harvey Laidlaw, Brian Quarm and Koby Mottoh are expected to be on the bench at Dean Court.