Portsmouth boss’ 2025-26 selection reveal ahead of ‘big’ season for highly-rated hopeful
The Pompey boss has taken the unusual step of making it clear who will start in one position in the Championship.
Connor Ogilvie will start next season ‘firmly in possession’ of Pompey’s left-back starting role.
And the Blues boss has challenged Jacob Farrell to produce a run of fitness, which will allow him to start pushing Ogilvie for first team inclusion.
Mousinho feels being consistently available for selection has to be the first port of call for the highly-rated Aussie, after a maiden campaign at Fratton Park wrecked by injury.
An ongoing knee issue reduced the 22-year-old to just a single appearance this term against Sheffield United, with high hopes for the Central Coast Mariners arrival after being handed a four-year-deal when signing for an undisclosed fee last July.
Farrell is completing his rehab with the Australian FA, with the expectation he’s fit to report for pre-season training next month.
Ogilvie looks set to be the preferred option going into the campaign, however, after emerging from a tough Championship baptism to become one of Pompey’s top performers.
Mousinho said: ‘It’s a big season for Jacob to try to stay fit for the year.
‘He’s had a few problems obviously which is fine, there’s not a huge amount he could’ve done with a recurring MCL problem.
‘It should be all sorted by the time he comes back, because he’s a good athlete.
‘So fitness is his first priority, then his second priority is to try to get into the side over one of our best and most consistent performers in the two-and-a-half years I’ve been here.
‘If you’d ask me to taking the role I would have known that anyway, so it’s a really good challenge for Jacob.
‘I think Connor had earned the right to start at the level this season, given his contribution last year and form the year before.
‘I think he started 44 (league) games the season I came in, but then only got half that the next season because of injury which was very rare for him.
‘Then this season he’s started 45 games, so I think it would’ve been Connor’s shirt because he’d certainly earned the right to have it.
‘Now he’s firmly in possession of that shirt and it will be a big task or Jacob to take it off him.’
The League One battle Pompey boss wants again
Mousinho may have indicated Ogilvie was going to start ahead of Farrell this season, even before the injury issues started for the new face, but the word after his arrival was it was set to be a nip-and-tuck call between the duo.
The Pompey boss wants the gap to be a close one between the duo, much as it was between Ogilvie and Jack Sparkes in last term’s League One title-winning campaign.
Mousinho added: ‘We want two players in every position.
‘When we had Jack Sparkes in the League One season and Connor was injured, we didn’t think there was a drop-off in quality.
‘Jack was a real contributor to what we wanted to do and that’s what we wanted to have, we want to have that in every position.
‘If Connor starts the season and picks up an injury or there’s a drop in form, Jacob comes in. We don’t want someone who’s just there to fill in, we want someone competing.’