Portsmouth boss reeling after problem position hit by fresh crisis following latest set-back
Fresh Keshi Anderson blow means the Blues have five wingers sidelined by injury
Another day, another injury, another winger - Pompey have been here before, many, many times.
With Keshi Anderson ruled out between 6-8 weeks through the hamstring injury sustained in training last week, John Mousinho’s attacking options have once more been weakened.
In terms of wingers, the former Birmingham man now joins Josh Murphy, Florian Bianchini, Harvey Blair and Franco Umeh on the sidelines.
Ahead of this Saturday’s visit of Sheffield United, the Blues boss has Millenic Alli and Gustavo Caballero at his disposal, plus Adrian Segecic playing out of position.
And with only Blair expected to return to action this month, the Blues’ winger struggles show no signs of easing up.
‘We have since lost all of those players’
Mousinho told The News: ‘It was one of the reasons we targeted bringing wingers in during January.
‘We originally had one winger on the wish list back in early December, but, at that time, we were looking at a situation where Murph was fit all the way up until that Derby game, Flo had been playing, we had Minhyeok, Harvey was back to fitness and had started a couple of games around the Christmas period, Franco was back to full fitness.
‘We have since lost all of those players. We’ve needed to try to replace them, that’s why we brought three wingers in. Unfortunately, we have lost one of those already, but we have to try to find a way to go with that.
‘We’ve had to carry without them, we’ve done it, we’ve had to. We’ve had to adapt this year, we’ve played with Terry as a winger, we have gone with Segs out there, we have gone with Conor Chaplin out there, we’ve had to shuffle things about.
‘It’s a specialist position and we don’t have the luxury at the minute of just being able to turn around and look at a plethora of wingers who are available, so we’ve had to be creative.’
Blair, who is pencilled in to return from a hip flexor injury for Millwall (February 21), is currently involved in modified training rather than featuring in full sessions.
Pompey are continuing to assess Murphy’s broken toe, while Umeh has been ruled out for the season and loanee Bianchini is still no closer to a comeback, having recently visited a specialist in France.
Mousinho is adamant his ongoing winger problems has severely impacted upon the team’s creativity problems, being the joint-second lowest scorers in the Championship this season with 27 goals from 29 games.
‘That has probably been the downfall - the creativity’
He added: ‘Our creativity has definitely been impacted by injuries to wingers.
‘We’ve had to adjust, we have changed shape a couple of times when we haven’t had those wingers available. And when we have struggled this year, that has probably been the downfall, the creativity.
‘I think we’ve been pretty defensively solid for the most part over the past few weeks. I know we’ve shipped some goals in heavy defeats, but, apart from that, we’ve kept most games tight, defensively we have been pretty good, even though we’ve had to patch things up at the back.
‘Probably from around early December onwards, when we had sorted ourselves out at the back, we had a couple of games where I’ve thought “Do you know what, we just need a bit more creativity at the top end of the pitch”.
‘The Swansea game was a really good example for me where we were pretty good on the night, but just didn’t create anything.’
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