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'We rate him highly': Portsmouth boss on why luckless attacker still has bright Fratton Park future The Australian has made 13 appearances since arriving at Fratton Park in January 2025 John Mousinho is adamant he still sees a bright Pompey future for Thomas Waddingham, despite the latest devastating injury set-back. The Australian damaged ankle ligaments just eight minutes into his season at West Ham last weekend, having appeared as a second-half substitute in the Carabao Cup fixture. Pompey’s head coach, who later described Ollie Scarles’ tackle as a ‘poor challenge’, now expects Waddingham to be sidelined for up to 10 weeks - or possibly more if an operation is required. Nonetheless, Mousinho remains a big admirer of the striker’s talents, despite the 21-year-old being restricted to just 13 appearances since his arrival in January 2025. And he insists a fully-fit Whittingham still has a place in his Pompey first-team. ‘Hopefully you can tell how much we rate him’ The Blues head coach told The News: ‘Tom turned his ankle ligaments under the challenge, he’ll be out for 10 weeks. ‘If he needs an operation, it will be longer. We will have to see on that one, if it does have to happen then we’ll get a timescale. ‘Hopefully you can tell how much we rate a player who signed and has probably been available for five per cent of the games over 18 months. ‘For us to want to keep him around and for us to want to have him as involved as we have wanted him over the past few weeks in pre-season, probably - or hopefully - tells you we want him involved and we think he’s good enough at the level. ‘Tom had looked very good. He came off the bench and scored against Wycombe, he played a half against Darmstadt, he came on quite early as well against West Ham, even though he was out of position for eight minutes. ‘We rate him highly, but just haven't been able to see him a lot.’ Portsmouth top scorer in pre-season Waddingham had been pushing for first-team recognition again after being sidelined by a torn quad for seven months of last season. With Mousinho easing him into action during the friendly schedule this summer, the Australian registered against Woking and Wycombe, finishing as leading scorer for a second successive pre-season. The Blues want him to challenge Marko Milovanovic and Colby Bishop for a starting spot, having loaned out striker rival Makenzie Kirk to Barnsley for the season. But now Waddingham is expected to be out until November at the latest after the fresh blow to his frustrating Fratton Park career. ‘I don’t think there’s any intent from the player’ Mousinho added: ‘I don’t think he (Scarles) means to go and hurt anyone, I don’t think it’s a challenge which needs to be made, he jumps into it and it ends up with Wadds crumpled underneath him. ‘I don’t think there’s any intent at all from the player to hurt Tom, I just reiterate what I said at the weekend, it wasn’t even given as a foul on the day. ‘Tom was injured in a poor challenge from behind, he hasn’t torn his hamstring or torn a quad. He had the issues last year when he repeatedly tore his quad, that’s what kept him out. ‘We were thinking we need to deal with that internally, we need to make sure we’re better in terms of where we train, in terms of the way we look after Tom - but that has nothing to do with it this time.’