'No panic': Portsmouth boss addresses player hunt as Blues target more transfers before Croatia trip

Yet the head coach believes there would be ‘no panic’ should they fail to improve their tally ahead of Saturday’s departure.

So far the Blues have signed five players for their Championship return - Jordan Williams, Josh Murphy, Reuben Swann, Jordan Archer and Sammy Silvera.

In contrast, nine were recruited by this stage in the summer of 2023, all arriving in time to be part of Pompey’s six-day stay at La Cala Resort in Malaga for a Spanish tour.

Crucially, it enabled an overhauled squad to bond and forge a team spirit which drove their League One title success.

Yet 12 months later, the Blues are in a very different scenario.

Mousinho told The News: ‘I don’t think there will be a huge number of more new faces before Croatia, maybe we’ll see one or two.

‘At the minute we are pretty happy with where we are in terms of numbers this early in pre-season. We had 20 players out there on Monday, which is a decent number, plus a couple more are ready to return pretty soon.

‘There are no real worries about where we are numbers-wise, but we will certainly look to add over the next couple of weeks. If we get players in before Croatia, great. But if not, there’s no panic.

‘We want to get players in as soon as we can, it’s just when it’s possible. Is it wise to do your business early? Yes - if you get the right players in.

‘At this stage last season we felt the nine new signings we took away to Spain were all the right players. We didn’t compromise on any of that and we want to do the same this year.

‘You must get the right balance between making sure you wait long enough to get the right player, yet not missing out on other players. Obviously that’s the trick to recruitment and what we’re trying to achieve in the recruitment department.

‘For the most part, though, we’ve been really happy with all the business done this summer and are looking in really good shape.’

Will Norris was the first signing of last summer, followed by Conor Shaughnessy, Christian Saydee, Terry Devlin, Anthony Scully, Ben Stevenson and Jack Sparkes.

Then, within 48 hours of flying to Spain, Gavin Whyte and Kusini Yengi were recruited, creating healthy squad numbers for their Spanish stay.

Mousinho added: ‘We had such an overhaul of the squad last year, yet it did feel we needed to get a lot of players in early.

‘Watching the squad now back in training, with the signings we’ve made already, you can see we have a decent-enough squad going into these sessions.

‘For Croatia, we will take all the players we have at the moment, which is 23-24. We then have space for a couple more if we sign them this week.’