Dream debut: Portsmouth boss' delight with ex-Crystal Palace man after memorable Fratton Park unveiling
The 20-year-old made his long-awaited Fratton Park debut in Monday night’s remarkable win
If making his Football League debut wasn’t memorable enough, it was a brief cameo which also coincided with a Fratton folklore moment to savour.
Finally Franco Umeh is up and running - and John Mousinho is relishing providing the 20-year-old with many more first-team opportunities to shine.
Despite being signed on the last deadline day, the attacker had to wait almost four months for his Pompey debut, such was the severity of the hamstring injury he arrived from Crystal Palace with.
Replacing Makenzie Kirk in the 90th minute against Charlton, Umeh was tasked with fulfilling the centre-forward role, a position he’s unfamiliar with.
Then, in the 98th minute, he challenged aerially Macaulay Gillesphey and Lloyd Jones to meet Andre Dozzell’s long pass into the box, with Minhyeok Yang collecting the loose ball to claim a dramatic winner.
Welcome to the Championship, Franco.
‘We stuck him on just to run around’
Mousinho told The News: ‘We just needed legs on at the back end of the game, so Franco came on for the last five minutes, which ended up being eight. He’s not a centre-forward, we stuck him on just to run around.
‘It was good to get him out on the pitch really, it was an interesting introduction for him, the pace of the game, how quick everything was.
‘Eventually we’ve got to pull the band-aid off and introduce someone who has only ever played under-21s football into the first-team environment. It was slightly different against Charlton, putting him as a makeshift centre-forward just to get him on the pitch.
‘It’s difficult to come on and get to the pace of the game, as a substitute there is that expectation you are really fresh and ready to go. As soon as you do one sprint, sometimes you can struggle.
‘I remember at times with Harvey last year, getting to those levels of fitness was tough, so you probably saw a bit of that with Franco on Monday.
‘It would be lovely if we were four or five nil up in the game so you can give him 30 minutes, but it doesn't look like happening at the moment, which is fine. It doesn't happen in the Championship anyway.’
On Crystal Palace’s bench in the Premier League
Umeh had previously played in four EFL Trophy matches for Palace under-21s, while also spent eight games on the Eagles’ bench in the Premier League last season, without being used.
It meant Monday night was a maiden outing at any level of the Football League for the Republic of Ireland under-21 winger.
And, having made Pompey’s bench the previous two matches, Mousinho felt it was time to hand the highly-regarded youngster his debut.
Mousinho added: ‘With Franco, you’ve just got to assess the situation game by game. There were plenty of opportunities to change different parts of Monday’s match and maybe he could have been put out wide, but we thought the right thing to do was bring Minhyeok on. He has experience of the level and Segs did a pretty good out on the right.
‘We must try to build up Franco’s minutes, keep him fit in training and go from there.’
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