Pompey boss John Mousinho gives his Fleetwood Town preview and discusses all the injury news and issues ahead of the clash at Fratton Park.
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00:00 So Jon, obviously Fleetwood at home on Saturday, you head into it on the offer back in terms
00:06 of the league, four wins in a row, four clean sheets, you made a lot of changes in the week,
00:10 presumably for this game back to the league you'll make those changes back?
00:14 Yeah I think the plan was to make sure that we rested a few players and we got minutes
00:18 into a few of the other lads that hadn't had the number of minutes in the legs that we'd
00:22 have liked to have at this point so yeah we've got obviously plenty of selection ahead of
00:28 us in terms of players that are available, players that are coming back and they've had
00:31 a decent week's worth of training and yeah so there'll be a much changed side to Tuesday
00:35 night.
00:36 You rested a number of first team players, that seemed like they'd be doing a lot of
00:40 good having that refresh I suppose in the week.
00:42 I think so, they've just played a lot of games over the past three or four weeks and it's
00:46 not just the number of games that they've played, I think it's the nature of them, first
00:49 of all three out of four away games, having the blow of losing to Blackpool as well was
00:54 tough, I think mentally pretty tough for the group but they came back in those four games
00:58 three away games, performed really well but always with a long, long way to travel from
01:02 Portsmouth and the other one was just a massive, massive home game against Bolton I think that
01:07 took a lot emotionally out of the group and probably out of everybody in the city from
01:11 both sides so I think it was one of those that was well worth having the ability to
01:15 rest the lads, really, really important for us, we got a bit of training work into them
01:19 and that was a real bonus for us as well.
01:20 What do you make of Fleetwood?
01:22 I think obviously their league position isn't where they'd like to be, they've struggled
01:25 a bit this season and they're not on the greatest run but they do have some really accomplished
01:30 players at this level, just two up front, the likes of Jadon Stockley, Jack Marriott,
01:35 so really good players, they've got that throughout the squad, not just up top and they've got
01:39 a really good head coach who's coached at a much higher level as well so they have the
01:44 ingredients to put on a really good performance and get results, they definitely do and I
01:48 think they were pretty unlucky I suppose not to get an equaliser against Peterborough towards
01:52 the back end of the game last week and not many sides restrict Peterborough to only one
01:56 goal, they managed to do that so I think they'll be relatively pleased with the way things
02:00 went last week and coming into today, bizarrely, well not bizarrely, I understand it with a
02:07 good bit of confidence, it might seem like it's a strange thing to outsiders but I think
02:10 they're going to have a bit of confidence, going to come and want to cause an upset so
02:12 we've got to be right at it.
02:14 In terms of injuries, how are they?
02:16 So we've got Tom Lowry we spoke about, he's having a scan today on his calf, we don't
02:22 think it's too bad but we just want to make sure there's nothing there more for his own
02:26 peace of mind than anything else and I don't think it's going to be one where he's going
02:29 to be able to participate this weekend but beyond that hopefully we can get him back
02:33 to possibly joining in one of these Christmas games, that would be nice because he is very
02:37 close to returning to being fully fit.
02:40 Anthony Scully came through the 45 minutes absolutely fine, he came through unscathed.
02:44 Conor Ogilvie has been out on the grass today, he's got two weeks I would say until he's
02:48 back in full training which is real positive and then the other ones, Zach Swanson is struggling
02:56 slightly with his groins coming off the other night, a recurring problem that he has had
03:00 for a while, we thought we got over it at the back end of last season with surgery and
03:05 all the rehab that he did in the summer but we just have to see how that one is settled
03:09 down over the next couple of days.
03:10 The final one is that Christian Sainz is 50/50 for the weekend, he picked up a knock in what
03:15 I thought was a really poor heavy challenge towards the back end of the game, the referee
03:20 decided to let it go unpunished, a bit bizarrely in my eyes but I did ask the question at the
03:25 time but the fourth official told me that our players didn't react enough for it to
03:30 be deemed a foul which I thought was very strange because when our players do react
03:33 they get booked so I'm not entirely sure where we stand on that.
03:36 So he's 50/50 for this?
03:37 He's 50/50, I don't know if you remember the challenge, it was a really poor one and he
03:45 ends up taking a knock to his foot so his foot's swollen, no surprise if you go and
03:49 watch it back.
03:50 Presumably Colby's now come back and is in contention to start this match?
03:53 Yeah Colby's back, he's fully fit so he'll be in contention to start the weekend.
03:57 With Oga, you say he's back on grass, he's not in full training yet?
04:01 No not yet, full training in two weeks, he's back out on the grass, he's done a lot of
04:05 running today, I think he was out there with the S&C team or the physiotherapy team, he's
04:09 progressing nicely.
04:10 Connor we've got to be careful with because he spent a long period out before he started
04:14 against Cambridge and then he played for eight seconds and then he's been out for a decent
04:19 period as well so you've probably got to put the two together in terms of his return protocol
04:23 and he'll be back in full training in a couple of weeks and then it's probably going to be
04:27 two, three, four weeks maybe once he's really fit again for match fitness.
04:34 So you're looking February then for him?
04:36 Probably the end of Jan, Feb yeah.
04:38 Tino Andrion as well?
04:40 Yeah Tino is rehabbing nicely, we don't have the day to day contact that we have with the
04:45 injuries here but Tino's doing well in Chelsea, we still speak to him occasionally.
04:50 We suspect that Tino's probably going to be a mid-February one as well.
04:54 Again February, you're looking for him as well?
04:56 Yeah, with the severity of Tino's injury and how bad the hamstring tear was, these things
05:02 are going to take a long time to rehab and again with the nature of it, it's one that
05:07 we want to make sure, particularly coupled with Tino and his injury history and how we
05:11 want to be really careful with him and not risk anything coming back, we just want to
05:15 make sure he is fully fit before we even entertain training.
05:17 Are you encouraged over how these injuries do appear to be clearing up at the moment?
05:22 Yeah and it comes in waves, there's peaks and troughs.
05:26 We went to Burton the other week and I think we fielded the 18 fit pros that we had and
05:31 at the weekend I think we left four or five pros out of the squad so that's the way that
05:39 these things happen.
05:40 We picked up maybe a couple more this week but then there's a couple that have returned
05:43 as well so that's the way that these things fall.
05:46 We just have to make sure that we keep the ones that are preventable as preventable as
05:49 possible.
05:50 There were some that we just pick up through no fault of our own, they just happen.
05:54 Christian Sadie was a good example and yeah, just get on with it and make sure we can cope
05:57 with it as a squad.
05:58 Thank you.