Portsmouth are now in their second season in the Championship having finished a respectable 16th under John Mousinho last season.

They’ve had a mixed start to the season but will be relatively happy with their current 13th place. Good wins against Oxford and Preston as well as a strong performance against rivals Southampton in a 0-0 draw have been undone slightly with a 2-0 defeat to basketcase club Sheffield Wednesday.

Goalkeepers

Nicolas Schmid, a 28-year-old Austrian, started the season as the man between the sticks and was performing very impressively. In the opener against Oxford he made four saves preventing 1.78 goals and secured himself a clean sheet in a 1-0 victory.

Former Norwich youth Ben Killip is the number two keeper having signed for Pompey in February following spells at clubs ranging from Lowestoft Town to Barnsley. He started in the 2-1 Carabao Cup defeat to Reading and has assumed the mantle of glovesman following Schmid’s injury against Southampton.

Former QPR man Jordan Archer and one-time Stoke keeper Josef Bursik make up the rest of the goalkeeping department which is certainly well stocked with Bursik now the keeper on the bench.

Defenders

In Regan Poole and Connor Shaughnessy, Portsmouth have an experienced partnership with both players having been at the club together since 2023. The pair are superb last-ditch defenders and excellent at clearing their box. Shaughnessy has already made a combined 43 blocks and clearances in the first four matches and Poole isn’t far behind with 37.

Full-backs Zak Swanson and Connor Ogilvie make up the rest of that consistent back four. Swanson is a former Arsenal youth who has found a home at right-back for Pompey whilst Ogilvie came up the other way, joining on a free from Gillingham in 2021. Both are solid defenders and Ogilvie won an impressive 64% of his ground duels last season.

It was a more youthful backline in the Carabao Cup with a couple of Aussies, Hayden Matthews and Jacob Farrell coming in alongside Ibane Bowat, who spent last season out on loan at TSV Hartberg.

Versatile defender Jordan Williams is also part of the squad, as is former Reading man Tom McIntyre, who spent last season on loan at Charlton.

The last addition to that defensive unit is Josh Knight. The Englishman swapped Peterborough for Germany in 2024 and had an impressive season in the 2.Bundesliga for Hannover 96 but has chosen to return to England to fight for the right-back spot at Portsmouth. He made his first appearance off the bench against Preston.

Midfielders

At 26 years of age Andre Dozzell seems to have finally found a team that he fits into and is currently playing some of his best football at Fratton Park.

He’s been partnered by experienced campaigner John Swift, who has found a new home on the south coast having been released by West Bromwich Albion in the summer. His 18 ball wins in the middle of the park are a league high as Mousinho opts for two highly skilled passers of the ball in the centre of the pitch as opposed to any destroyers.

However, they do have a more destructive option in 25-year-old South African Luke Le Roux, who joined this summer from Swedish side IFK Värnamo.

Mark Kosznovsky is another option in there having joined from MTK Budapest. Both are unproven in the Championship and are rightly slowly being eased in. Both came on in the defeat to Sheffield Wednesday.

Twenty-one-year-old Northern Irishman Terry Devlin and evergreen Marlon Pack are the other options in the middle.

Forwards

Conor Chaplin will be unable to play in this one given the rules on loans so it will have to be a reshuffle behind the striker.

Josh Murphy missed the Sheffield Wednesday game with a minor niggle that he’s been managing all season but having dropped out last weekend could return for this one. He was Pompey’s stand out player last season with seven goals and 14 assists as an inverted left winger.

Chaplin’s absence is likely to see Adrian Segecic move back into the central 10 role where he flourished at the start of the season with goals against Oxford and Norwich, both strikes from outside the box.

This could see Florian Bianchini switch back to the right-hand side having filled in on the left against Sheffield Wednesday. The Frenchman is seeing more game time on loan from Swansea having largely been a bit part player for the Swans last season. His best performance this season was against Norwich when he got his first assist of the season.

With three promising youngsters Yan Min-hyeok, Harvey Blair and Franco Umeh out injured there’s no real wing strength on the bench, although the former pair have been training this week.

The more experienced Callum Lang is also injured. Makenzie Kirk, naturally a striker, replaced Segicic off the bench against Wednesday so if Pompey are struggling for goals Mousinho will have to switch things around in terms of formation. There have been a few shouts from Portsmouth fans that they could go two up top from the start.

Colby Bishop is the main striker. The former Accrington marksman has 57 goals in 138 appearances following his move to the south coast but is one of the biggest xG underperformers in the league with just the one goal so far from 3.11 xG.

There’s unlikely to be any changes up top, however, with 20-year-old Australian Thomas Waddingham and January signing from Brisbane Roar being eased into Championship life gently having been injured for a large chunk of last season.

The Teams

Following the washout last week and coming into three games in eight days, there’s definitely going to be some squad rotation in this period. And this game feels like a good one to make some changes in. With Town at home and likely to dominate the ball, bringing in Marcelino Nunez feels like the most obvious choice, whilst Cedric Kipre will be the one enforced change for the suspended Jacob Greaves.

For Portsmouth, Murphy may be needed to return given injuries in the wide areas, although is a doubt himself, whilst Knight could now be fit enough for his first start having been given 45 minutes last week. An injury to Shaughnessy is likely to also see Matthews get his first start.

Prediction

I think this could be an eventful one, and for the right reasons this weekend. Portsmouth are struggling with injuries but do possess a direct goal threat with Bishop, something Town have struggled with this season but should possess plenty of threat going the other way, particularly if Nunez comes in. I’m going for a 3-2 victory.

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