Portsmouth boss admits ‘concerns’ over Chelsea and ex-Huddersfield man as Blues seek to maximise his talents – Yahoo

That’s the admission from John Mousinho, although he remains entirely comfortable with the Chelsea loanee’s fitness situation.

The in-form Blues head to Cambridge United on Tuesday night seeking to strengthen their hold on League One’s top spot.

For Anjorin, it represents a second match in 72 hours having started Saturday’s 1-0 victory over Carlisle as Mousinho continues to ease him into first-team action.

The former England youth international’s second league start of the season lasted 58 minutes, before replaced by Christian Saydee.

Pompey’s head coach believes Anjorin is ready to retain his spot at Cambridge – although admits the length of time on the pitch is their biggest ‘concern’.

He told The News: ‘There’s no reason why Tino cannot play against Cambridge, especially considering the fact he came off relatively early at the weekend.

‘The concern for us with Tino isn’t necessarily that he can’t go back-to-back with a Saturday-Tuesday game, it’s when he ticks into that 65-70 minutes where he becomes fatigued and then maybe picks up an injury, so that’s why we are building him up slowly.

‘Tino’s output is incredibly high if you look at his metres per minute and sprint distance, but whether we ever need him to go for 90 minutes, I don’t know.

‘The most important thing, especially for the attacking players, is we look for them to give us everything for 60-65 minutes. Then we have options on the bench to bring you off – and that goes for everyone.

‘But it’s much more explosive at the top end, there’s much more sprint distance, more repeated distance, and that’s why players fatigue.

‘A lot is about the physical side of the game. If you sprint and you stop, sprint and you stop, it’s going to take its toll on the body. That’s what we want our wingers to do, what we want our attacking players to do.

‘It can be difficult when you are asking for that output from wingers, particularly these days when most oppositions have attacking full-backs, so we’re also asking them to track back the other way.

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‘You will see that in abundance with our wide players. Not only do we want them to be effective going forward and producing, we need them to press, to track, to make sure they do defensive responsibilities as well – and that’s a tough ask.’

Anjorin has totalled 209 minutes from his six Pompey appearances so far, since arriving in late August.

But Pompey are pleased with his progress following a number of injury-hampered years.

Mousinho added: ‘As far as we are concerned with team selection, he is fully available for Cambridge.

‘If he does start a Saturday-Tuesday again, we have to be careful because it’s the first time he’s had it for quite a long time, but, medically, everything he’s done on the training pitch shouldn’t prevent him from doing that.

‘We just have to be very careful. There’s no point in us rushing anything with Tino when we don’t have to.’