Pompey boss John Mousinho chats to The News ahead of Saturday's League One trip to Derby
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00:00 So Jon, after 9 games in the opening 29 days of the season, you gave the players time off.
00:07 Does that benefit them?
00:08 I think so, yeah. That was the whole point of doing it, to make sure they get a bit of
00:11 a well-earned break. And to be honest, it was certainly the toughest opening to a season
00:18 I've had in a long, long time, just with the amount of games. We really enjoyed it, to
00:21 be honest. We enjoyed having game after game after game, but I think the back end of that
00:25 Peter game, it was a good chance for the lads to just take a couple of days, just to refresh
00:31 everything. And also for us, it was a real positive, because what we managed to do over
00:34 the past couple of weeks is have two really solid three-day training blocks, and that's
00:38 something we just haven't had at all until the build-up to the Bristol Rovers game. And
00:42 rarely during the season do you get a chance to actually work with the boys on anything.
00:46 With all of the games that we've had, it's pretty much been recovery and a bit of preparation,
00:51 recovery and a bit of preparation, and no real time to work on the training pitch. So
00:54 I think the break came at a good time for us.
00:56 A few have had niggles and knocks. First of all, Gavin White, with his hamstring injury,
01:01 which forced him out of international duty. How is he?
01:03 Gavin's okay. He's one that didn't take the time off, because he's been in making sure
01:09 that he's re-having the hamstring injury. So I don't think it's quite as bad as we first
01:13 thought it could be when he came off against Peterborough. But Gavin is touch and go for
01:16 the weekend, most likely not going to be involved, but it's not something that is going to keep
01:21 him out for too long. We're still monitoring that on a daily basis, but thankfully for
01:26 us and for Gavin, it's not too bad of an injury.
01:30 Anthony Scully as well, what situation was that?
01:32 Anthony had an injection in his knee. I think to rewind a bit, since then it was the specialist
01:40 that took a look at the scan and decided that surgery wasn't needed. I know that sounds
01:44 a bit drastic, but these days you can get in and out quickly with a bit of surgery and
01:48 it can just be a case of a couple of weeks rather than anything a bit longer. We're pretty
01:54 pleased to not have to do anything with regards to that, but what we're waiting to do is for
01:59 the injection. First of all, it usually flares up the knee for a couple of days, so you've
02:02 got to stay off it completely and then everything should settle down. Anthony's now been working
02:06 hard in the gym and will step up his progression in terms of where he is with his knee. So
02:10 we're looking at hopefully two or three weeks rather than anything longer than that. A couple
02:15 of bits with Anthony and with the nature of that injury is that you just have to make
02:18 sure you take every step one by one with these things. Make sure that nothing flares up when
02:23 you do your gym work and progress onto the bike, onto the treadmill and ultimately outside
02:28 onto the grass. So it's difficult to put too definitive a timescale on it, but pretty good
02:33 news overall. That's not as bad as you feared then? I think when we look at anything to
02:38 do with the knee, we obviously not fear the worst, I suppose something like an ACL is
02:42 the worst, but little bits with Tom Lowry is a really good example. Tom just felt his
02:48 knee at half time against Bristol Rovers, didn't seem too bad, was keen to play on and
02:53 turns out he had a tear in his meniscus. So those are the things that you fear coming
02:57 back from a scan and Tom altogether is going to be out for about three months. So those
03:03 are the things that always come to mind straight away and Anthony is nowhere near as bad as
03:07 that, so pretty good news. And the Angie? Cassini's coming along really well, he's really keen
03:12 to get things going, he's a long time out of the boot now and the boot and the crutches
03:16 that you might have seen and it's just a case with Cassini now to get that stability back
03:20 in the ankle and get his match fitness back. That's probably the one thing that's going
03:24 to hold Cass back over the next couple of weeks is the fact that he's just been off
03:28 his feet for so long now. But he's working really hard in the gym and hopefully with
03:34 Cass it'll be two to four weeks and we'll see him fully fit and back and ready for selection.
03:38 Is he back outside running now as well? He's not quite back outside running yet, I think
03:41 he's getting closer and closer to doing that and he's really functional in the gym. The
03:46 next step will be to get him outside on the grass and get him moving again. But you say
03:49 that he's progressing well as well? Progressing really well, yeah, and Cassini is one of those
03:53 who actually came back a lot quicker than we expected pre-season when he took a little
03:58 knock there and came back flying against Crawley, I think, was his first game back after he'd
04:04 taken an initial knock. So he's one of those I think he recovers well, he works really
04:08 hard in the gym and he's just very, very keen to get back out there sometimes. We've got
04:11 to hold him back and make sure that he's okay because he's ready to go. With the wing injuries
04:16 and concerns there, Kobe Motta as well comes into the thinking presumably? Yeah, Kobe's
04:21 trained with us this week which has been a real positive and I went to the Hampshire
04:26 Senior Cup game, obviously saw you there last week and Kobe I think came alive, especially
04:32 in the last half hour, got himself a couple of goals, scored the penalty as well and he's
04:36 been a real threat I think for the academy this year in terms of his goal scoring and
04:41 goal contributions and when he's come up and trained and played with the first team I think
04:45 he's been very effective as well. So I think yeah, a well-deserved spot this week in training
04:49 for Kobe and we'll see where that takes him. With your wing options reduced, does he come
04:56 into that as cover at all? I think so, yeah, and he wouldn't have started the two games
05:00 that he started this year without deserving it and I think certainly it's a good opportunity
05:05 for him to come in when we are struggling a bit with a lack of out and out wingers if
05:12 you lose Gavin and Scully, I think Abou always sort of fancies himself a bit more as a 10
05:17 and Paddy is slightly different, he's an inverted right wing so yeah, Kobe definitely has got
05:22 a chance to come in and impress. With Joe Murrell missing through a one-match suspension,
05:26 how do you replace him? I think first of all it's a real blow that Joe's missing, I thought
05:31 he was coming in some really good form as well and was starting to really influence
05:33 games and thankfully we've got a squad behind us that has got the capabilities to do that.
05:37 We've got Terry who is coming back from 21 to duty with Northern Ireland and made a couple
05:43 of appearances this week, he'll be back in the fold. Alex Robertson I think is more than
05:47 capable of playing in there as well as Ben Stevenson as well so there are plenty of options,
05:51 there's a couple of different formations and different things that we can do and shuffle
05:56 the pack there and ultimately that's why we've got the squad and we'll have to look at doing
05:59 that and see where it lands. Any more injury concerns at all? No, no more injury concerns
06:04 at the moment, I think off the top of my head we've got a clean bill of health apart from
06:08 obviously the ones we've spoken about. Thank you very much.