Mousinho on Portsmouth youngster’s injury and summer investment hopes

Mousinho on Portsmouth youngster’s injury and summer investment hopes

John Mousinho has ruled out summer signing Franco Umeh from returning before the end of the season.

The winger has endured a nightmare with injury since joining the club from Crystal Palace and Mousinho confirmed he will not be seen again this campaign.

“Absolutely nowhere near,” the Pompey boss said. “He’d have been doing pitch work but still a couple of months away.”

Portsmouth have already confirmed another season of Championship football but Mousinho says it is important the club invest if they are to avoid another relegation battle.

“I still think we need to do both (invest on and off the pitch),” he told BBC Radio Solent.

“The investment that we’ve put into the football club has been amazing considering where we were as a football club in 2017 and previous to that when the fans saved the club.

“But we’re still a long, long way behind other Championship clubs in terms of infrastructure, in terms of training ground, in terms of staff networks, all those kinds of things so we’ve got to keep going on that and then we have to take a viewing of where we want to be with the playing budget.

“That’s going to be a conversation over the next couple of weeks because if we don’t invest on and off the pitch then we’ll perennially be in this relegation fight and we need to try and move away from it.

“It’s just about figuring out what our strategy is. Our strategy over the past couple of years has been very short-term and we’ve been focused on staying in the Championship.

“So spending has been at a level where we have spent money – we spent money in January – but we haven’t bought players that are necessarily players for the future.

“It’s about the strategy, it’s about what we want to achieve over the next 5-10 years as a football club and then going from there”