Portsmouth transfer restiction in wake of John Mousinho appointment emerges | OneFootball

Oxford United manager Karl Robinson says Portsmouth are not allowed to sign players from his club for 12 months following the appointment of John Mousinho at Fratton Park.

Pompey ended their search for Danny Cowley’s replacement on Friday, when they announced the appointment of Mousinho as their new head coach on a long term contract.

In order to take up that role, the 36-year-old departed his job as a player-coach with Oxford, who he made 150 appearances for after joining in 2017.

Mousinho will no doubt be keen to add to his new squad in the final days of the transfer window, as he looks to build on a 2-0 win over Exeter in his first game in charge on Saturday.

However, it seems he will not be able to revisit his links with Oxford in order to do that, for some time to come.

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Speaking about whether the new Portsmouth boss will look to raid his former club for new additions, Oxford boss Robinson told The Witney Gazette: “Part of the contract agreement is that for 12 months, that can’t be the case anyway.

“It’s about protecting assets, but John’s been very respectful to Oxford United. He goes 100 per cent with my blessing.”

The Verdict

This feels like a sensible clause for Oxford to include in this deal with Portsmouth for Mousinho.

Managers often do look to players they have worked with before when recruiting in the transfer window, and Mousinho may have been particularly keen to do that, to help him adapt to this new challenge.

However, this clause in the deal means that cannot happen, which will help Oxford, given they do have plenty of assets that it would be blow for them to lose, especially to a League One rival such as Pompey.

It will therefore, be interesting to see just who Portsmouth are able to bring in for Mousinho to work with over the remainder of the campaign, before the window closes at the end of the month.