'A kick in the teeth': Portsmouth favourite on his season agony - and finally fresh hope

A frustrated Josh Murphy surveyed his injury-devastated Pompey season and admitted: It has been a kick in the teeth.

The talented winger missed four Championship games last season as he dominated supporter player of the season awards, while was also voted by his team-mates for the Players’ Player of the Season.

This term, the former Cardiff man has already missed seven league fixtures, plus the Carabao Cup defeat to Reading, after being sidelined firstly with a hamstring issue and then ankle ligament damage.

Saturday marked Murphy’s welcome return to action against Stoke, with a 23-minute cameo off the bench providing tantalising glimpses of what John Mousinho’s men have desperately been short of.

And with just five outings so far in 2025-26, the left winger is ruing a stop-start campaign to date.

‘It has been stop-start for me’

He told The News: ‘We are 12 games into the Championship now and it has been stop-start for me.

‘I played pretty much every game last season, so to have this many games out already has been a bit of a kick in the teeth.

‘It was a ligament injury, lots of fluids around one of the tendons and one of the ligaments. So, effectively, it was just a bad sprain.

‘At one point, I went down to London on the train to get an injection in my ankle, so part of the protocol was I had to spend a week in a boot after that. I know there was a photograph of that, sometimes things aren’t as bad as what they actually seem!

‘It was just a precaution. When I was around my house I could take off the boot and walk around normally, it was just to give me a bit more support.

‘While I was out injured, I could still do a lot of stuff, I could run, but only in a straight line. It was just a change of direction.

‘There was a conversation we had about “Can you just try to see how you can manage in a game”, but, at the same time, I want to be able to twist and turn and actually help my team.

‘If I can’t press, I feel like I’m letting my team down, so we made the decision to take the time until I was fully able to give the team 100 per cent.’

Out of action since September 14

Murphy had sustained ligament damage to his left ankle ahead of the south-coast derby in September.

Nonetheless, he still completed the full 90 minutes - only to subsequently sideline himself for the next six fixtures after making the issue worse.

Still, after Pompey decided against rushing him back and handling the 30-year-old’s rehabilitation with caution, Murphy is now in a position to step up his first-team involvement.

Indeed, with only his third touch against Stoke, he produced a wonderful cross to Makenzie Kirk, which the striker should have scored from in the 1-0 loss.

Next up is a trip to Birmingham, with the former Newcastle man striving to build on Saturday’s comeback.

He added: ‘I’m back now and I hope it stays this way. All I can do is just crack on from here and just try to produce.’

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