Pompey boss John Mousinho gives the lowdown on the January transfer window latest and previews the trip to Fleetwood.
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00:00 First of all, you talk about the friendly, obviously Conor Overby was lined up to be
00:07 involved. How much is the disappointment in him, could he have given that match practice
00:10 and now he's back in action?
00:12 Yeah, Conor wasn't going to be involved so that wasn't a problem in terms of that. It
00:16 was far too soon for him I think to be involved in any match action. But Conor was going to
00:19 train with us on Tuesday. Unfortunately we couldn't get the game on, we thought it would
00:22 be useful to get a few lads minutes and see a few of the academy players as well. But
00:26 one of those things, obviously the weather's been extreme here this week and plenty of
00:29 games have been cancelled and maybe a few more at the weekend. So one of those things,
00:33 we managed to get a good training session and try to replicate what we would have done
00:36 in a game anyway and that's really important I think for the lads that haven't had a huge
00:39 amount of game time. So that's just something we have to deal with and get on with.
00:44 But it would have been vital for some of your lads as well, it's just unfortunate I suppose.
00:48 I think it would have been vital, I think they can cope without it. I think it would
00:53 have been nice to have that, that's obviously why we arranged the game. We wanted to get
00:56 minutes into a few people and we wanted to actually see some of the players that have
01:00 been on the fringe, we wanted to see them perform and I think there's always places
01:03 up for grabs whenever you're playing games. But especially now I think you're off the
01:07 back of the recent run of form so it would have been good to see a few players get back
01:11 into the rhythm of things in games. We haven't been able to do that so we've just tried to
01:14 replicate that as best as possible in training and I think it's been a really positive training week.
01:18 Were trylists going to be involved as well?
01:20 No, no trylists, no trylists yet.
01:22 So how is Conor at the moment?
01:24 He's great, he's trained with us this week, so he's trained Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.
01:27 I think obviously the first time he's trained in earnest since he picked up that injury
01:31 against Cambridge and Cambridge was only back on the pitch for I think eight or nine seconds
01:36 before he picked up the injury, a bit longer overall. But it's been a long, long time out
01:40 for Conor so we've got to make sure that we manage that right. But he's been at it in
01:43 training, looks fit, he looks strong. Possibly this weekend is going to be a step too far
01:47 for him considering we weren't going to play him on Tuesday as well. So I think we'll monitor
01:51 that one and hopefully he'll be back and fit and available for Port Vale.
01:54 What can a fit Conor Ogilvie give you?
01:57 Well I think he started 44 league games last season so I think that gives you an indication
02:03 of what everybody here thinks of him, myself and obviously the previous head coach as well.
02:07 And he's had a really, really standout time even since he's been at the football club
02:13 and Conor Ogilvie gives you everything you need out of a left back I think.
02:17 Very, very solid, very, very reliable, excellent footballer, very, very good defensively as well.
02:23 And I think we're trying to get a bit more attacking play into Conor which we saw at
02:27 the back end of last season in particular and I think he's more than capable of doing
02:30 that. So I think he'll bring a real boost when he's back inside.
02:33 Is it a case of easing him back into the first team or can you just throw him in there for a start?
02:38 I don't think you can throw him straight back in and I think a lot of that's due to the
02:41 fact that when he was initially back for that Cambridge game he'd been out for a bit then
02:48 at that stage. I think he'd been out since the Barnsley game where he picked up the injury.
02:51 So we have to take it really cautiously and sort of in our minds know that the injury
02:56 in terms of match minutes and getting back into league action has been since September.
03:02 He got injured in September basically so we've got to make sure we approach with caution.
03:05 In terms of transfers, any updates at all?
03:08 Nothing imminent. I think there's a lot of talk and not a lot of movement in terms of
03:17 actual transfer activity and there's a couple of reasons I think behind that. First of all
03:21 January at the start of January is notoriously slow anyway. Things will definitely heat up
03:25 in the next couple of weeks and I think the other one this season for this January in
03:30 particular is availability of players. With the AFCON and the Asia Cup, Premier League
03:35 players have lost players going away on international duty as we have as well. So I think there's
03:41 much more of a hesitancy to let players go. That coupled with the fact that there's FA
03:45 Cup fixtures and again you see sometimes the Premier League sides in particular playing
03:51 players in the FA Cup that might be available for loan if they don't go through to the next
03:56 round etc. etc. and might have been available for loan if there hadn't been players that
04:00 had gone away on international duty. I think the final factor in how slow it is is the
04:05 fact that there's this mini break for some Premier League clubs and when they go away
04:09 and they do these training camps they like to take a larger squad with them. So I think
04:13 things will definitely happen towards the back end of the window and all of that with
04:15 Premier League clubs has a knock on effect to the rest of the league for Championship
04:19 clubs, how willing they are to let players go because they haven't signed players from
04:22 above as well. So I think the best way to summarise the window so far is a huge amount
04:26 of work and conversations have gone into it but nothing has transpired so far. I think
04:32 the big positive for us is we haven't lost out on any targets yet so the ones we are
04:36 interested in we're still monitoring and we're still making sure we keep a close eye on.
04:40 Do you expect anything to happen before the weekend?
04:42 Probably not before the weekend. I think that's again there's just a couple of factors as
04:48 I spoke about there that are meaning that there isn't a huge amount of actual activity
04:53 and it's a wait and see, yes this player is probably going to become available in 7-10
04:57 days and what we want to do is make sure we strengthen. We obviously don't want to miss
05:01 out on players but we haven't done that yet. What we want to do is make sure we get the
05:04 best possible player with the best possible fit to come into the football club at the
05:07 right time and if we have to be a bit more patient in January we'll be a bit more patient.
05:11 At what point do you become frustrated about January business?
05:14 I think we become frustrated if we start to miss out on targets and possibly if we're
05:20 waiting on a player and we miss out on a couple of other players because we're waiting on
05:24 that one and that's the balance, that's the fine balance that we have to strike and that
05:27 hasn't happened yet so there's no frustration. We are making sure that we keep an eye on
05:31 everything, that we're diligent in all the work we do and we try and keep on top of transfers
05:35 as much as possible and just try and weigh everything up, take everything on its own
05:39 merits and if we think that there's something that's likely to happen and we want to take
05:42 the risk to wait for that one then great, that's obviously the art of recruitment and
05:46 thankfully we've got a brilliant recruitment team here with Rich as well so I think all
05:51 of that comes into it and we've got to make sure that we just stay on top of everything.
05:54 Are there any transfers that you'd like to bring in, bodies you'd like to bring in,
05:57 change on the off the back of recent results, in particular on Saturday as well?
06:01 No I don't think so, I think one of the things that we want to make sure is that we're not
06:05 hugely reactive to what of course was a poor performance but for me in all of the performances
06:12 we've put in this season that was definitely down there I think in terms of the most frustrated
06:16 I've been because I just didn't think we did the basics of the game particularly well
06:19 but I also know that the lads that performed at the weekend and the lads we've got in the
06:23 building are more than capable of playing brilliantly well because for the first 21
06:27 games of this season I thought we were the outstanding side in the league and deserve
06:31 to be where we were, haven't shown that over the past few weeks so it's something we've
06:34 got to address but I think we can address it with the players we do have in the building
06:38 particularly with a couple of the injuries we've got coming back and so yeah transfer
06:41 plans haven't changed because of that, we still want to strengthen, we still want to
06:44 make sure we come out the back of the transfer window better than we were when we went into
06:48 it and yeah we obviously want to increase the demand on the players that are in the
06:52 building. Any fresh injuries still? No we've had Connor Ogilvie train this week, full training
06:57 this week which has been a real positive, obviously we spoke about the game he was never
07:01 pencilled in for that so it was just a full training session for him this week which was
07:05 great, he's come through that without any problems, a bit stiff and sore I think for
07:09 his first full training week which is fine, that's to be expected and the other big positive
07:13 of the week was Tom Lowry, came through 45 minutes, no reaction, trained for the three
07:18 days this week, trained on different surfaces as well without any response which was real
07:22 positive for us so we're happy to have Tom back. And where does the training start on
07:26 Tuesday? Moneyfields. Ok thank you very much. Cheers.