Signing Lee was with ‘sole aim’ in mind – Mous
John Mousinho believes it was mission accomplished as Lee Evans leaves Pompey as a champion.
The Blues boss feels the midfielder’s Fratton stay served its purpose, as he helped his side to the League One title.
Pompey opted against extending the 29-year-old’s stay, as they announced their retained list last Wednesday.
Evans arrived as a free agent at the start of March, after recovering from a knee injury which had kept him sidelined since October.
The former Wolves, Sheffield United and Ipswich man made four appearances for Pompey, including a start as they won the League One title against Barnsley.
Evans arrived at a time when the Blues’ midfield options looked threadbare and in danger of being totally exposed.
That was after injuries to Joe Morrell, Tom Lowery and Terry Devlin had severely restricted Mous-inho’s choices.
The Welshman helped remedy that issue, however, while bringing experience and leadership to the squad.
Mousinho said: ‘We felt really lucky to get Lee on that short-term deal.
‘He performed really well when he played. He came into the club at a difficult time and provided us with important cover in the centre midfield area. ‘For Lee, he probably would have liked to play a bit more, but we went through that spell of not losing a game and having some really good performances.
‘It was a difficult one to get him more game time, but we were really, really pleased with Lee’s contribution.
‘When we spoke about bringing in Lee, it was for the sole aim of achieving our goal and we managed to do that.’
Going up with Pompey was Evans’ fourth League One promotion, after helping Wolves (2013/14), Wigan (2017/18) and Ipswich (2022/23) into the Championship.