Regan Poole was forced to sit out Pompey’s win at Lincoln with a hamstring injury

The injury that forced Regan Poole to sit out Pompey’s win at Lincoln City isn’t long-term.

In fact, head coach John Mousinho expects the defender to be back in time for next weekend’s trip to Bristol City.

The 28-year-old sat out Saturday’s Championship fixture against his former side due to a hamstring injury.

It’s something which the centre-back attempted to play through last time out against QPR - and an issue he was prepared to tolerate once more at Sincil Bank.

However, the final call came down to Mousinho, who wasn’t prepared to take a risk with a player who has been a near ever-present since his return from a serious knee injury in September 2024.

The Blues boss insisted he needed all his players to be 100 per cent for the game against the Imps and would not take into consideration any niggles they were carrying in his post-match assessment of their displays.

Mousinho explains Poole’s absence v Lincoln

Confirming the stance taken on Poole, who featured 41 times in the league last season, Mousinho told BBC Solent: ‘Regan, to be fair to him was struggling through the game last week just with a couple of hamstring issues, so we wanted to make sure that he got that right.

‘It's a big plus, I think, that Regan wanted to play, he wanted to sort of get through it.

‘But, physically you can see today we needed the players at 100 per cent, we needed them at it all the time, and I did say to Regan, “look, if you come and play against Lincoln and the performance isn't quite there, I'm going to judge you on that rather than judging you on the fact that maybe you're not quite right”.

‘So I was just giving him a bit of time to do that. He should be (okay for next week).

In Poole’s absence, Mousinho handed a full league debut to on-loan Brentford defender Benjamin Arthur, who partnered Conor Shaughnessy in the centre of his defence against Lincoln.

The 20-year-old got the nod over Josh Knight and Jojo Dia, who were named on the bench.

Hayden Matthews was also overlooked as he’s anticipated to head out on loan before the close of the transfer window on September 1.

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