Welcome back: Portsmouth boss applauds 'outstanding' Australian Hayden Matthews after 10-month battle
The Australian international made his eight appearance of the season in the 2-1 win over Blackburn
It has taken almost 10 months - now the real Hayden Matthews is back.
That’s the verdict of John Mousinho, who hailed the centre-half’s best performance of the season in Saturday’s 2-1 triumph over Blackburn.
The Australian international has struggled to replicate the impressive early form he demonstrated after breezing into Fratton Park from Sydney FC in a £1.25m deal at the start of 2025.
With ankle ligament damage cruelly ending Matthews’ season in February, he has subsequently struggled to regain such heights, despite making a summer comeback and featuring eight times this term.
However, Pompey’s win over Rovers signalled a welcome return to form for the towering 21-year-old - with Mousinho afterwards singing his praises.
‘It has taken him a bit of time’
The head coach told The News: ‘I thought Hayden was outstanding. Overall, he was very good, very good on the ball and off the ball.
‘For us, one of the big frustrations with him this year is that we saw his promise last season when he came from Australia and played straight away. It has taken him a bit of time to get back up to that.
‘But I did think he was much more solid against Swansea - and he went again against Blackburn, with his best performance of the season.
‘Hayden had that really bad injury against QPR (in February) and played on at the time. I’m not really sure why he hasn’t gone back to those levels, it’s an interesting one.
‘It has taken him a bit of time to get his match fitness and match sharpness going and being as comfortable as he needs to be.
‘We saw glimpses of that against Stoke, then he went backwards against Birmingham and didn’t quite look himself athletically, regardless of the fact we wanted him to be a bit more dominant and to win his headers.
‘However, he’s just put it back together very, very well in the last week or so.’
Still complete a Championship 90 minutes this season
With Conor Shaughnessy (hamstring), Regan Poole (ankle) and Josh Knight (back) on the sidelines, Matthews and Ibane Bowat have been handed more first-team opportunities in the centre of defence of late.
However, Mousinho remains concerned that the Australian has still to complete a full 90 minutes in his four Championship starts this season, with cramp an ongoing issue.
It was also an issue in starts against Stoke, Birmingham and Swansea, although Matthews did complete the full match in August’s Carabao Cup start against Reading.
And Mousinho is also looking for the Australian to find a way through the ongoing problem.
He added: ‘Hayden needs to make sure he can genuinely start and finish games, because we had to bring him off again (on Saturday).
‘I didn't think it was the right thing to chuck Ashton Sizer on at this stage of his career and you don’t expect him to compete against Makhtar Gueye, so we had to shuffle things there.’