Portsmouth's Season Challenges: Managing Injuries and Squad Depth
The Championship never lets up. Everyone inside it says the same. Yet, strangely, Portsmouth haven’t really felt the full storm. Not yet.
A freak postponement against Wolves has left them with a gentler start than most, just one midweek fixture so far. Now comes something just as unusual: three weeks without a league game, and only a handful of players – likely four – heading off on international duty.
It’s a pause in the calendar. It is not a pause in the problems John Mousinho has been juggling.
A squad used, but not yet hardened
Pompey have already used 28 players this season. That number screams depth, but dig a little deeper and the picture changes. Only three of them have started every league game. Only seven have completed 90 minutes more than once in the Championship.
That’s not just rotation for rotation’s sake. Mousinho has more quality on his bench than in previous years and has always been happy to lean into the five-substitute rule, but he’s also been managing a squad riddled with knocks, niggles and half-fit bodies.
New arrivals Marko Milovanovic, Jayden Meghoma and Tyrese Shade all turned up needing to build their fitness. Shade and Milovanovic barely trained before signing because their moves were in the balance. Milovanovic has since picked up a minor injury. Abu Kamara was eased in carefully too.
Then there’s Ryan Kavuma-McQueen. Seventeen years old, already trusted, but understandably protected. His minutes are being managed – and he’s doing it all while playing with a broken hand.
Wingers wiped out and old issues lingering
Injuries happen to everyone. Portsmouth are not special in that regard. Yet losing three wingers in quick succession feels particularly cruel.
Josh Murphy, Keshi Anderson and now Luke Brooke-Smith have all gone down. Three wide options, three problems for a system that leans heavily on energy and width.
Marlon Pack missed the start of the campaign. Regan Poole has been dealing with a hamstring issue. Zak Swanson and Ebou Adams both carried injuries from the end of last season into the summer, slowing their progress when the new campaign kicked off.
Conor Shaughnessy finally looked somewhere close to his best last weekend, a reminder of what he can bring at full tilt. But he sat out the only midweek game so far, and Mousinho is still non-committal on whether the defender can handle more than one match a week. The last two seasons of Shaughnessy’s career have been scarred by injuries. That doesn’t vanish overnight.
So the manager has been spinning plates. Constantly. The difference this year is that the plates are better quality. The depth is improved, the options stronger, but the balancing act remains.
A break that doesn’t feel like a blessing
On paper, three weeks off in September sounds like a gift. Time on the training ground. Time to heal. Time to sharpen.
Mousinho doesn’t quite see it that way. At this stage of the season, he believes a long break disrupts rhythm more than it helps. The real problem, though, lies on the other side of it.
The South Coast derby snaps them back into action and immediately opens a brutal stretch: five games in 14 days, eight in 28. No easing in. No gentle ramp-up. Straight into a run loaded with difficult fixtures and emotional weight.
That’s when the early-season management of minutes has to pay off. By the end of September, the expectation is that most of those currently available will be able to complete 90 minutes regularly. They’ll have to. Because once that derby whistle blows, the luxury of carefully controlled game time disappears.
Mousinho will still be spinning plates. Only this time, the room will be louder, the lights brighter, and every dropped one could shape Portsmouth’s season.
