‘I don’t think we’ve got that luxury’: John Mousinho lifts lid on scale of Portsmouth injury problems ahead of Arsenal clash
Premier League leaders Arsenal make the trip to Fratton Park this afternoon, with Pompey currently battling an injury crisis.
John Mousinho has admitted Pompey don’t have the luxury to make wholesale changes against Arsenal this afternoon.
But the head coach is adamant he will have 20 senior players available for selection to face the Premier League leaders at Fratton Park.
The Blues are currently in the midst of an injury crisis, with as many as eight players unavailable against the Gunners today.
Meanwhile, Colby Bishop (unspecified) and Marlon Pack (hamstring) could return to the fold after missing Pompey’s 5-0 defeat to Bristol City last time out.
This forced the Blues to name academy talent Tayo Singerr on the bench at Ashton Gate as issues romped Mousinho’s squad.
And with bottom-of-the-table Sheffield Wednesday awaiting next weekend in a crucial contest in Pompey’s survival battle, the head coach has stressed he doesn’t have the luxury of making changes against Arsenal today.
John Mousinho lifts lid on Pompey’s injury crisis
But the Blues boss, though, has made it clear he will be able to name 20 senior pros in the squad to face Mikel Arteta’s men after injury and illness affected the camp.
Mousinho told The News: ‘We’ve got enough, we’re fine. We’re okay.
‘We were definitely thin for the Bristol City game, we had the academy players come and travell with us, three academy players.
‘The likelihood is that against Ipswich we would’ve had three academy players on the bench, maybe four because of some of the things we were struggling with.
‘There was a little bit of illness in the camp as well.
‘We’re back up to numbers, I think we’ll have 20 fit pros for the weekend.
‘We’ll have Marlon back in the fold, hopefully we’ll have Colby in the fold and a couple of players who were struggling with illness back.
‘I don’t think we’ve got that luxury at the minute in terms of resting a huge amount.
‘In all honesty, this game might actually represent a decent opportunity for players to pick up some minutes where match fitness hasn’t quite been there.
‘I’m not talking about fringe players, that’s some of the first-team players that we can get back into the swing of things. The big focus for us is to be as strong as possible.
‘With Sheffield Wednesday in mind, there’s a little bit of a caveat there but we’re going to go into the game and do as best we can.’
John Mousinho on Pompey’s rearranged games
Pompey, of course, have been out-of-action 10 days after last weekend’s game against Ipswich Town was postponed due to a frozen pitch.
And Mousinho is wary of the workload his injury-hit squad will face over the coming weeks in the rearranged contests against the Tractor Boys and Charlton Athletic.
‘It helps and it hinders because at some point we’ve got to play it and we’re going to play it in a very difficult period where there’s going to be a lot of fixtures.
‘We had a couple of games postponed last year: Millwall at home and Blackburn away.
‘(We) rearranged both of those and the months of January and February for us were incredible in terms of workload and unfortunately those two games we did have rearranged didn’t help us because we lost the pair of them.
‘We’ve got Charlton and Ipswich to rearrange, we’ll do as best of a job as we can to be as strong as possible but you never know.’