Portsmouth handed huge injury blow as keeper ruled out for 8-12 weeks

Pompey have learned the extent of the injury picked up by goalkeeper Nicolas Schmid in Sunday’s south-coast derby stalemate against Southampton.

And it’s not good news for the Blues, with the Austrian expected to miss between 8-12 weeks of the season after it was confirmed he has factured a bone in his right hand.

That will see the 28-year-old ruled out until the beginning of November at the earliest, or up until the start of December, with the Pompey number one now potentially set to miss the Blues’ next 15 games - which is a third of the campaign.

What happened to Nicolas Schmid

The keeper suffered the injury in the first-half of the game against Southampton.

He raced from his box to mop up a long ball forward by the home side, only to collide into team-mate Connor Ogivie, who was nudged in the back by Saints winger Tom Fellows.

Schmid attempted to play on, but lasted only another seven minutes as he was replaced by Ben Killip in goal on 25 minutes.

Ogilvie was also withdrawn at half-time with a ‘significant’ neck injury. The left-back is rated 50-50 for Saturday’s home game against Sheffield Wednesday.

Mousinho provides update on Schmid and Ogilvie

Speaking in his pre-match press conference ahead of the Owls game, head coach John Mousinho said: ‘Connor’s okay. We’re going to see how he is on Friday, before we make a decision before the game on Saturday.

‘He’s 50-50 on whether he’s going to play.

‘Nico has picked up a fracture in his hand, as we predicted. We sort of knew that at half-time, so Nico’s going to be out for an extended period.’

He added: ‘It’s a difficult one (how long he’ll actually be out for). We’re hopeful that he won’t need surgery - and I think that’s just going to be dependent on an appointment next week - but we’re looking at 8-12 weeks altogether, so it’s a real blow.

‘It was a nasty collision and we knew at the time, we knew there was a problem, hence why we had to substitute Nico, and it was even worse at half-time.

‘That’s going to be a bit of a blow.’

John Mousinhos ‘angry’ in post-match interview

Schmid has been Pompey’s No1 since he dislodged League One title-winner Will Norris from the role last October. The Austrian has gone on to feature 40 times in the league for the Blues and played a key role in last season’s successful battle against relegation.

Speaking after the final whistle on Sunday, Mousinho said he was angered by the incident.

He said: I thought it was a really, really poor challenge.

‘It doesn't look like a huge amount, but everybody in the stadium can see that the goalkeeper's coming out, particularly the Southampton player.

‘He decides to push Connor Ogilvie into the goalkeeper, and I've got two players that are injured and one to go to hospital.

‘So, I thought (it was) a really, really poor challenge and poorly dealt with.

‘We've got a significant neck injury for Connor Ogilvie and a possible fracture for Nico Schmidt.

‘So, in a challenge that is just really obvious, (it) can be avoided. The Southampton player just pushes Connor Ogilvie into Nico Schmid. There's no need for it, but nothing comes of it. So, you can probably see I was clearly upset by that. And not the consequence of it, because I didn't know at the time. I was very upset at the time about the challenge.’

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