news-engine

'We've got to be a bit careful': Portsmouth boss John Mousinho urges caution over Josh Murphy The former Norwich man made 16 appearances last season - and has featured just twice in 2026 John Mousinho is ready to resist the ‘temptation’ of handing Josh Murphy a comeback at SV Darmstadt. Instead a return against West Ham in the Carabao Cup remains a far more realistic target, with the Blues wary of rushing the talismanic winger back too soon. Encouragingly, Murphy last week joined in with full training, having been sidelined since the end of April following a groin operation. Potential friendly outings are running out for the 31-year-old, with trips to Farnborough (Wednesday) and Darmstadt (Saturday August 1) remaining on Pompey’s pre-season schedule. Murphy has been restricted to just two first-team appearances since a hamstring issue at Derby in December - a fact not lost on Mousinho. ‘We’ve got to be a bit careful with him’ And he’s weighing up whether to hold back the former Norwich man until the Carabao Cup visit to West Ham on August 8. The Blues’ head coach told The News: ‘Murph is all right, he’s been training since last week, so we’re building him up. We’ll see how he is in terms of that reaction to training. ‘I know he came back at the back end of last season, but that was more of an emergency if we needed him. ‘Apart from that, he has been out since December 20, 2025 (Derby), so we’ve got to be a bit careful with him. Although he’s been in and out of training for the last couple of weeks. ‘We will look at Germany, the temptation is to stick him back in, but we don’t want to rush him too much.’ Pre-season set-backs for injury-hampered Portsmouth trio With Keshi Anderson, Franco Umeh and Jacob Farrell all suffering injury set-backs during pre-season, Pompey can ill-afford for Murphy to become yet another casualty. Anderson sustained a quad injury during their Republic of Ireland training camp in Fota Island earlier this month, having returned from a hamstring injury sustained towards the end of the 2025-26 campaign. He will be out until October. In the case of Umeh, after being blighted by hamstring issues since his September 2025 arrival, the Blues were treating the former Palace man with caution during pre-season, not involving him in friendlies. Regardless, he damaged his groin in training last week - and is now expected to be sidelined for another month. Finally, Farrell had still to return to full training following a groin injury sustained on loan at Western Sydney Warriors in April and was instead completing his rehabilitation. Two appearances in 2026 Murphy endured a 2025-26 season devastated by injury issues, including a broken toe, hamstring tear, ankle ligament damage and groin tear. As a consequence, the influential attacker made just 16 appearances last term, of which just two outings have arrived in the year 2026. Certainly Pompey favour easing the former Cardiff man back into the action this summer, rather than running the risk of him breaking down once more.