John Mousinho details reasons behind Middlesbrough man's failed Portsmouth loan ahead of Fratton flop's return
Sammy Silvera failed to score or assist in 10 appearances for Pompey during a loan stint in the first half of the 2024-25 campaign.
John Mousinho has detailed the reasons why Sammy Silvera’s Pompey loan failed to hit the heights many expected.
But the head coach is adamant there should be no ill-feeling towards the Middlesbrough man ahead of his Fratton Park return on Saturday.
Following his arrival in July 2024 on a season-long loan from Boro, the winger failed to score or assist in any of his 12 appearance, leading to his premature exit in January.
After struggling with Blackpool in League One during the second half of the campaign, there were plenty of questions over Silvera’s future at the Riverside Stadium.
The 24-year-old has featured six time in the league for Boro this term, who top the table ahead of their trip to Pompey on Saturday.
And 12-months on from Silvera’s disappointing loan Fratton stay, Mousinho admitted the Blues’ poor start to the 2024-25 season had a detrimental effect on his time at PO4.
John Mousinho on Sammy Silvera’s Pompey loan
The head coach Told The News: ‘He’s had a very positive start to the season. We always knew Sammy was a really good player, that’s why we brought him in here.
‘For whatever things didn’t quite work out but Sammy was sat here last year in a side that hadn’t won a game.
‘He probably didn’t have the best platform to necessarily perform as well. I’m sure he would’ve wanted to do a bit better here but ultimately we didn’t have a very good first half of the season and Sammy suffered for that as well.
‘It happens, it just happens. You’ve got a young player coming over from Australia, he had a pretty good season in his first season in the Championship, then came out on loan and they were a couple of loans which didn’t 100 per cent work out like he would’ve wanted them to work out.
‘You just have to be patient with players a lot of the time. I’m not saying that certain players have made it or certain players have thought this is it off the back of a couple of questions that have been asked.
‘If you look at Minhyeok, the questions were being asked two or three weeks ago when he hadn’t made an appearance for five games. Why have we got him here? Is he going to have an impact? What’s he going to do for the first-team?
‘You just have to be patient with some of these players, sometimes it works out sometimes it doesn’t.
‘Players are always judged on performances at the end of the day and to see Sammy back in and doing well is pleasing just as long as it doesn’t happen on Saturday.
‘He came into a side that wasn’t very good in the first half of the season, he would’ve been disappointed with some of his own performances and by the same token I don’t think we particularly played to his strengths.’
First Pompey involvement since Bristol City
And Mousinho is adamant there should be no ill-feeling from the Fratton faithful towards the former loanee.
‘I think it will be relatively positive, I don’t think there will be any ill-feeling towards Sammy whatsoever and I don’t think there should be.Sammy always tried and put maximum effort in, whether it worked out or not is irrelevant.
‘I know he had a very negative reaction to his performance up at Bristol City but you look at that and Sammy got singled out but it could’ve been 11 players, it could’ve been me or the coaching staff.
‘I think we’re all pretty balanced here at Portsmouth and I don’t think it will be negative at all.’
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