'No-brainer': John Mousinho lifts the lid on how Portsmouth recruited their star summer signing
The Australian has three goals in 10 matches so far - with Spurs’ Minhyeok Yang having one fewer
With three goals at present, it’s an unlikely figure heading Pompey’s scoring charts.
Now 10 games into the campaign, undoubtedly few would have anticipated that a 21-year-old from Sydney FC would have enjoyed quite such an explosive start to his English football career.
Nonetheless, the June capture of swift Fratton favourite Adrian Segecic was a ‘no-brainer’ according to John Mousinho.
Identified by a transfer team overseen by sporting director Rich Hughes and head of recruitment Brad Wall, the attacker was among 11 new faces as the Blues built on an encouraging first season back in the Championship.
So far he appears to comfortably be the Blues’ best signing of last summer, with Mousinho again fully involved in the transfer process, despite others carrying out the initial leg work.
And Pompey’s head coach has explained the key machinations behind Segecic’s south-coast arrival.
Portsmouth boss: I still have a huge amount of involvement in recruitment
He told The News: ‘I’ve now been at the football club for almost three years, the way we recruit has actually been pretty consistent over that time. It has just changed in terms of the challenges when recruiting in League One, when it was pretty straightforward.
‘It’s a lot more difficult in the Championship for us in terms of where we are. We still follow the same process, the recruitment team go away and do all their work day-to-day during the season and during the window. Then they come back with a long list which becomes a short list.
‘I’m always in touch with the recruiting department and Rich about that. However, I don’t really get involved in the detail until we have a shortened number of players available for each position.
‘I still have a huge amount of involvement in that recruitment. It’s about making sure the club has a sporting director and recruitment department which oversees the club’s interests, but we also have to mix that with what the head coach actually wants.
‘Segs’ signing was pretty straightforward. He was the joint-top scorer in the A-League last year at the age of 20. He’s massively energetic, can score off both feet, and puts himself into really good positions. It was a bit of a no-brainer, really.
‘Sometimes in recruitment we have to look at in a huge amount of depth and look at nuances of players’ games, depending on what position they play and depending on the impact they’re having at the time.
‘But, with Segs, he was just a really good young player on form who makes things happen. That made it straightforward.’
Scored in each of his opening two Championship appearances
He then marked his maiden Fratton Park Championship appearance with a consolation goal in the 2-1 defeat to Norwich.
Then, earlier this month, the youngster came off the bench to grab a late equaliser against Watford, putting him on the pathway to a current tally of three goals in 10 appearances.
That’s one more than Spurs loanee Minhyeok Yang, who registered in successive matches before the international break to take him to two goals at present.
‘Sometimes we take a calculated risk’
Mousinho added: ‘Ultimately, if you want to expand into different territories, you have to watch clips on a laptop.
‘We don’t have a scouting department out in Australia. We’re trying to build a scouting department, but we don’t have a European scouting department either. Yet we can see all the clips and make a judgement based on that.
‘Some of the challenges we face are not a secret. We can see British talent every week, but it’s a lot more expensive than the likes of Adrian Segecic. For a player performing over in Australia week in, week out, he’s just not costing the same.
‘That’s where we have to go with those other markets - and sometimes we take a calculated risk based on what we see on a laptop.’