Portsmouth dealt fitness blow as boss reveals Conor Shaughnessy role for season
The Pompey boss reveals the restricted role the League One title winner will have on his side’s bid to remain in the Championship.
Conor Shaughnessy is set to have a limited impacted on Pompey’s bid to remain in the Championship.
John Mousinho has revealed the key defender will be able to play just one game a week for the rest of the campaign.
1 game a week for Shaughnessy for rest of Championship season
The move comes as the Blues act to reduce the chances of the League One title winner facing another setback, after an injury-ravaged couple of seasons.
Shaughnessy has made just 11 appearances this term, after suffering a hamstring injury last August and then being sidelined with a quad issue for nine games in January.
The 29-year-old made his comeback at Blackburn last Saturday, before missing the defeat to Swansea City on Tuesday.
Mousinho explained Pompey need to manage the key defender after so much injury pain, but has now detailed just how restricted his involvement will be.
And it means the former Leeds United man will sit out a number of key clashes over the remainder of the season.
Mousinho said: ‘I think so (Shaughnessy can play one game per week).
‘We’ll monitor that and see how he is after the international break, that’s the likelihood.
‘The most important thing is to try to keep him fit for as long as possible.
‘We can’t sacrifice performance too much but, at the end of the day, Conor is no good to us back in the physio room.
‘At times last year we felt that Conor was ready, but didn’t have the luxury of giving him time to settle back into the side.
‘Even when we brought him back this year post-Sheffield Wednesday, I thought we gave him a slow and steady build-up.
‘It was half an hour against Charlton, 60 minutes against Bristol City and 60 minutes against Arsenal. There was a week’s break between Arsenal and Sheffield Wednesday.
‘It was all planned and we built him up very slowly, but evidently even that wasn’t quite enough.’
Ogilvie and Poole to take on weight of centre-back duties
Pompey will now likely rely on Regan Poole and Connor Ogilvie as their main centre-back operators for the rest of the campaign.
Madiodio Dia, Hayden Matthews and Ibane Bowat are other considerations for the position, with Dia favoured over Matthews for the right-sided centre-back position on Tuesday night.
Mousinho added: ‘We’ve now got a centre-back pairing in Regan (Poole) and Connor (Ogilvie) who are performing well. We have three other fit centre-backs behind that as well.
‘We’ve got some good options there. Regan and Connor are probably the two in possession of the front-line starting spots, but we have good competition as centre-back.’