'Portsmouth don't get a fit Rob Atkinson': John Mousinho hails signing of Bristol City man after eye-catching Sunderland debut

And he’s savouring the talented centre-half’s presence after an eye-catching cameo in the 1-0 defeat at Sunderland.

The Blues were trailing to Wilson Isidor’s early goal when Atkinson was introduced in the 67th minute following Marlon Pack’s sending off.

Asked to play on the right-hand side of the centre of defence, despite being left footed, the Bristol City loanee turned in an impressive display as the 10 men avoided conceding again.

And Mousinho hailed his ‘excellent’ 23-minute showing, irrespective of a Stadium of Light defeat.

He told The News: ‘You don’t get a fit Rob Atkinson. A fit Rob Atkinson is playing every week is playing in the top half of the Championship and probably progresses from where he was at Bristol City, where was doing really well before his injury.

‘To give you a taste of how highly Bristol City rate him, after he tore his ACL two years ago, two months later they gave him a new three-year contract because of how good he had been.

‘That’s how much potential Rob’s got, he is still only 26, and we saw that against Sunderland. I thought he was excellent when he came on.

‘I can speak with some authority on Rob because I played with him at Oxford. First of all, he's a really good defender, dominant aerially, he can cover ground, he’s aggressive, he defends the box really well.

‘One of his strongest attributes is the ability to carry the ball from the back and really gets you up the pitch.

‘Since I’ve played with him, he has really grown as a young man and a leader as well. He’s going to be really important for us towards the back of the year.

‘We don’t get Rob unless he is in the position now where Bristol City want him to get out to play games.’

Despite defeat, Pompey remain outside of the Championship relegation zone courtesy of more goals scored than Hull.

And it was a display much-improved on their previous outing - the dismal 3-0 loss at Bristol City.

Mousinho added: ‘We looked organised, we were brave in terms of the press. There’s going to be a lot of times that if you don’t want to get pressure on the ball high up the pitch you have to go one-for-one man-for-man at the back - we did that really well.

‘The work-rate, intensity, desire, it’s what we didn’t necessarily see at Ashton Gate, but it was all there at Sunderland, you couldn’t fault any of that with the lads.

‘We just need a bit more quality in certain moments.’