David Norris: Mousinho should follow ‘ruthless’ Maresca example at Portsmouth
David Norris says John Mousinho should take a leaf out of Enzo Maresca’s book to manage his overbooked Portsmouth squad.
With 31 senior players on the books, Pompey have the largest roster in the Championship this season and Mousinho has previously admitted he prefers to work with a smaller group of players, having failed to offload as many fringe players as he would have favoured.
Maresca’s Chelsea have been notoriously chaotic in the transfer market and have an entire ‘bomb squad’ whom the boss has straightly informed will not be involved in his plans.
Norris, speaking exclusively to Pompey News, said: “The Chelsea manager has taken a lot of stick for how he’s gone about it, but he has been ruthless and told players straight if they won’t be involved – that’s how Mousinho needs to do it.
“If he wants to work with a smaller group, that’s the approach. Maresca has been clear on who won’t be involved in his plans, they train away from the team, and everyone knows where they stand.
“I was impressed with Maresca when he came out in the press and said ‘this is what’s going to happen’. The last thing you need is disgruntled players affecting the rest of the lads around the place.”
Portsmouth to be more like Chelsea?
Of course, one thing is to be made clear – the situation at Portsmouth is nothing like at Chelsea in terms of the utter chaos of the squad building process, if you can call it that at Stamford Bridge.
In terms of senior players on the books, however, Chelsea actually do have fewer first-teamers than both Newcastle United and Southampton in the Premier League – the issue is how many are actually registered and tied down to contracts of ridiculous lengths.
At Fratton Park, one ruthless decision has already had to be made by Mousinho in axing players from his 25-man league squad until January. This has included Ben Stevenson who has already featured in the league this season, alongside Tom Lowery and Colby Bishop – the latter of whom is recovering from a serious heart operation and is ruled out for a sustained period regardless.
The debate surrounding Chelsea is that everyone knows how erratic Todd Boehly has been in the boardroom – it’s more whether the recently-appointed Maresca has himself crossed the line of ruthlessness into disrespect to some very decorated players, including Raheem Sterling, Romelu Lukaku and Ben Chilwell.
It’s a tricky situation for Pompey to manage – though they have barely noticed the numbers in the squad this season due to injuries – but Mousinho will earn further coaching stripes if he can navigate it in the most efficient way.
In other Portsmouth news, Kusini Yengi must regain his spot in the Australia side after a nightmare game on Thursday.
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