Portsmouth boss defends winger policy as he strives to drive maximum creativity

John Mousinho has pledged to continue rotating his wingers as he seeks to avoid player burn-out. 

At Bristol Rovers, Paddy Lane was omitted for Gavin Whyte as the only change to the side which were held to a disappointing 1-1 draw by Fleetwood.

The 22-year-old has been an automatic starter for the League One leaders this season, most recently on the left wing, but primarily on the right.

Within four minutes of being introduced from the bench at the Memorial Stadium, he netted the Blues’ equaliser - only to suffer the devastation of an injury-time loss.

And Mousinho has explained the importance of looking after his wide men

He told The News: ‘We felt Paddy’s had a pretty heavy workload over the last few weeks with the travel and - also with the fact we’ve plenty of games coming up - we wanted to freshen things up.

‘We’re asking our wingers to do a lot in possession and out of possession as well, we don’t want to run them into the ground. It’s one of the things we have to be wary of with those lads.

‘We make sure they are as fresh as possible and I think we have good options to be able to try to affect that.

‘I don’t believe Paddy’s performance against Fleetwood was up to his own standards. He puts in a huge amount physically and sometimes it’s one where he comes out of the side and freshens up - which happened on Boxing Day.

‘Who knows, maybe he would have done that anyway from the start, but we have to make sure we manage that physical load.

‘We brought him on as a left wing-back, although didn’t particularly see it as too different from the way he has been playing over the past few weeks. The only difference was he didn’t have a left-back behind him.

‘We still want him to get into those attacking positions, which he did for the goal, a really good finish, and there was another chance which he had at the back post.’

For Whyte, it was a first league start since mid-September as he attempts to re-establish himself back into the side.

He featured until the 72nd minute, when replaced by Kusini Yengi in a double substitution which also saw Lane introduced for Jack Sparkes.

Mousinho added: ‘I thought Gavin was our lively substitute against Bolton, he obviously scored in the EFL Trophy game, and was probably the bright spark towards the back end of Fleetwood, although will be disappointed not to score.

‘Gavin did pretty well on Boxing Day. He drifted in and out of the game, we would have liked to have got him on the ball a bit more in the first half, their number five (James Wilson) pretty much man-marked him.

‘But when he did get on the ball, he looked lively enough. We just have to keep adding to Gavin’s game and make him a bit of a threat in the final third.’