'His best performance for Portsmouth': Why John Mousinho may keep on experimenting against Birmingham
The Blues choose an experimental starting XI at Stoke - and are set to do the same against Birmingham
John Mousinho is weighing up whether to once again field an experimental side following the success of his Stoke reshuffle.
While Adrian Segecic rightly stole the show with his hat-trick in the 3-1 win, there were also notable displays from a number of fringe players handed rare starting opportunities.
Mousinho credits Luke Le Roux with producing his ‘best performance in a Pompey shirt’, while Harvey Blair delivered a sublime assist for Segecic’s first goal.
Hayden Matthews also impressed in the centre of defence, and Ben Killip, who was introduced in the fourth minute after a quad injury for Josef Bursik, was solid enough in his first outing since September 2025.
Birmingham visit Fratton Park on Saturday to bring down the curtain on a season which could yet see Pompey finish in 17th, having already equalled last year’s points tally.
And Mousinho is considering sticking with his shadow squad.
‘We decided to give the contracted players a bit of a show’
He told The News: ‘We will take a view on team selection based on what we think Birmingham will produce. We’re going to try to win the game and pick the team off the back of there.
‘However, there’s that focus on next season. We know who is in the building next year, the loan players have been excellent for us and given us absolutely everything, but at Stoke we decided to take those out and give the contracted players a bit of a show.
‘We wanted to have a look at Joe (Bursik), he really deserved his chance to play. Nico has had a season where he’s played every game when available, so it was also to give him that break. Unfortunately it didn’t work out for Joe.
‘We wanted to have a look at Hayden, Regan was absolutely running on empty for the past few weeks.
‘Harvey is one of those we haven’t quite been ready to start again and when there has been a huge amount on it. We’ve been ready to bring him on when we are losing, but on Saturday we wanted to see how he reacted to a situation like that, which was important.
‘The other change was Luke Le Roux, he has been incredibly unlucky to not play more games. He was excellent against Norwich, but I thought Stoke was his best performance in a Pompey shirt.’
It’s a selection approach Mousinho also adopted during the finales of the previous two seasons.
Following the capture of the League One title with two games to spare in April 2024, he dropped regular starters Sean Raggett and Marlon Park from the trip to Lincoln for the last day.
Instead Ryley Towler and Tom Lowery started the subsequent 2-0 victory, with Paddy Lane and Myles Peart-Harris scoring.
Then last season, having secured safety with two matches remaining, Mousinho dropped Matt Ritchie and Adil Aouchiche, instead giving Harvey Blair and Terry Devlin starts.
‘This is the third season on a spin where we’ve had that luxury’
He added: ‘We’ve had this situation now for the past three years, this is the third season on a spin where we’ve had that luxury.
‘We had a little look at a few different players off the back of the League One-winning season, we did the same at Sheffield Wednesday last season.
‘For that one, Harvey came into the side, Shocks came back into the side, Langy, who had been injured, came back into the side as well. So we have done that in the past.’