The damning statistic behind title-winning trio's Portsmouth's absence - and why they now offer Championship hope
The title-winning trio spent just 287 minutes together in the Blues team this season
They were meant to form Pompey’s spine, a title-winning trio regarded as pivotal to performing successfully in the Championship.
In reality, Colby Bishop, Callum Lang and Conor Shaughnessy started just four games together - and shared a pitch in five overall - during the 2024-25 season.
Remarkably, despite the constant collective absence of the talented threesome from his first-team, John Mousinho’s men still avoided relegation with two matches to spare.
The Fratton faithful do not need lecturing on how the Blues are a much stronger side with Bishop, Lang and Shaughnessy serving as first-team regulars. It is an issue beyond debate.
Portsmouth trio played 287 minutes together this season
And just 287 minutes spent on the pitch together over a 48-match campaign in all competitions acts as a sobering reminder of the devastating set-backs Mousinho’s men shrugged off to stay up.
Providing the trio can consistently avoid the injury and illness issues which struck last term, Pompey will naturally be a more competitive side for the forthcoming 2025-26 season.
That’s before flexing the recruitment muscles in the summer transfer window to bolster a squad which still managed to finish 16th in the Championship, irrespective of such costly absences.
Breaking it down, Shaughnessy, the Blues’ best defender, featured just nine times, with three calf injuries and a hamstring tear devastating his return to a level where he previously represented Leeds.
Bishop was back in action just three months following heart surgery and still finished as 11-goal top scorer after 32 outings, including 31 successive Championship starts from November.
As for Lang, he was a revelation, a player of the season frontrunner and the leading scorer until snapping his hamstring at Oxford in February, thereby sidelining him for 10 matches.
Not shared a pitch together in nine months
Having finished the previous season with a 2-0 victory at Lincoln as League One champions, it wouldn’t be for another nine months before Shaughnessy, Lang and Bishop occupied the same pitch together for the visit of Millwall to Fratton Park.
The following match was the visit of Burnley, with the trio named in Mousinho’s starting XI - for the first time since April 2024 - as it finished goalless.
By the time Pompey faced Cardiff, they had featured together four successive times, representing a timely return from injury for the battle against relegation.
As it happened, Bishop and Shaughnessy established a 2-0 lead after just 17 minutes, only for the latter to tear his hamstring in the 60th minute, sidelining him for 11 games.
As a consequence, there was no Shaughnessy for the trip to Oxford United four days later - while the Blues then lost Lang at the Kassam Stadium with a hamstring issue in the 63rd minute of the 2-0 triumph.
Ending Portsmouth’s season on a high against Hull
It wasn’t until the final day of the season against Hull before the three were reunited on the pitch together once more, all starting the 1-1 draw which kept the Tigers in the Championship.
That offered precious hope for next season, with Lang, Bishop and Shaughnessy heading into the summer back playing and free from injury.
And the Fratton faithful will be hoping to see the threesome in the same Pompey team on more than five occasions next term - progressing up the league will likely depend on it.
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