Futures of fringe players will wait until pre-season – Mous
John Mousinho is planning honest talks with the fringe players contracted to be part of Pompey’s Championship adventure.
But the Blues boss insisted decisions won’t be made about the extent of involvement for those on the periphery of his squad until pre-season.
Mousinho’s men are celebrating their League One title victory, with the curtain coming down on the season at Lincoln this weekend.
Individual discussions are then planned for the Pompey squad across two days at the start of next week.
What lies ahead for the 15 players whose contracts come to a close will be under the microscope, with the likes of Marlon Pack, Sean Raggett, Joe Rafferty, Joe Morrell and Connor Ogilvie out of contract.
But some ‘realistic’ talks will also be taking place with those who have deals for next season and beyond, who’ve not had a huge amount of playing time this term.
The likes of Gavin Whyte, Ryley Towler, Ben Stevenson and Anthony Scully could all conceivably fall into that category, with a variety of factors behind why they’ve found minutes hard to come by.
Stevenson has only managed 108 League One minutes in 2023/24 – his last appearance was against Stevenage on New Year’s Day – while Towler (169 mins), Scully (271) and Whyte (1,105) might have imagined they would have had more third tier action, even without injuries.
Between them, those four players have only made 18 league starts this season – and Whyte has made 12 of them.
Mousinho plans to afford clarity to players who are likely to find playing time an issue at a higher level, but ultimately won’t come to a decision on what lies ahead until they’ve had a chance to prove themselves.
He said: ‘I think it’s one for pre-season.
‘We’ll have realistic conversations with the players about the season and the seasons they’ve had.
‘Some of their form could have been better and some of them have just been really unlucky, with the fact they haven’t had a huge amount of game time.
‘It might be a conversation where the next pre-season we give everyone a fair chance to come back and compete for a spot.
‘But we have to be realistic, players will want to play games - but we have to take each individual case as they come.
‘It’s a conversation for next pre-season, though, and to just to see how players come back.
‘You can always get surprises. If you look at what, in our mind, would have been front-line players or