View: John Mousinho must axe 64% Callum Lang after Portsmouth loss v Sunderland
Portsmouth were one of the new additions to the Championship for the 2024/25 season.
Despite many people predicting the second-tier newbies to not put up much of a fight across the campaign, they’ve seemingly managed to prove them wrong.
Pompey find themselves residing in eighteenth place with three points to their name. Whilst this doesn’t look like the best of returns, for a team that hasn’t splashed the cash since their promotion, it’s been a decent start for the club.
However, if Mousinho wishes to improve his chances of retaining this Championship status, he may have to consider axing Callum Lang, especially after his performance against Sunderland on 31 August.
Portsmouth could replace Callum Lang with Harvey Blair
Losing 3-1 against the Championship early pacesetters, Lang was replaced by Harvey Blair in the 79th minute at Fratton Park.
Although the youngster has only just joined from Liverpool [Dharmesh Sheth, 22 August], after Lang’s performance against the Black Cats, the 20-year-old could well be in line to take his starting spot.
As per Sofascore, Lang only managed to touch the ball 21 times throughout the entirety of the clash and ended his time on the pitch with a pass accuracy of just 64 per cent.
Whilst this number might not seem too bad, when you find out that Pompey’s playmaker only made a total of 11 passes throughout, it shows how little of an impact he had on the game.
In addition to his poor passing numbers, the 25-year-old had an xG of just 0.21 and an even worse xA (expected assists) of 0.02.
Lang made no key passes during the game and failed to register a shot on target and, to make matters worse, he managed to lose possession of the ball seven times and failed to win any of his aerial duels.
These statistics alone showcase why Lang should be axed once the international break ends.
In Blair’s case, despite only being on the pitch for a total of 11 minutes, he managed to have just under half the amount of touches that Lang mustered during the 79 minutes he was playing (10) and he even managed to maintain a passing accuracy of 100 per cent.
Despite his cameo being short and sweet, it feels as if Pompey has a special talent on their hands in Blair and he could have a big impact on their Championship standing come the end of the season.
Aside from Blair, Matt Ritchie was also brought back to Fratton Park and, whilst he’s more of a winger, the Scotsman could also have a fairly impactful tenure with Pompey before the season reaches its end.
In other Portsmouth news, John Mousinho has welcomed yet another new defender to his ranks.
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