Matt Ritchie finally left Newcastle United in the summer.
Eight years of great service and just one of many excellent signings by Rafa Benitez.
Matt Ritchie joining his former club Portsmouth and moving back to the south coast, looking like the perfect move.
However, things haven’t quite worked out that way, so far.
Matt Ritchie has only made one start for Portsmouth and that was back in August, a 3-1 home defeat to Sunderland.
He has played only 120 minutes in the league and has even recently struggled to get any chances from the bench, only twice in the last five matches.
With Portsmouth the only team in the Championship yet to win a match and sitting second bottom of the table, you would think somebody with the experience of Matt Ritchie would be regularly used.
However, the Portsmouth manager has been explaining why that hasn’t been the case…
John Mousinho speaking to The News about Matt Ritchie:
“Matt Ritchie is close to getting into the team.
“The challenge for him is to really impress in training a.
“The challenge for him is to really impress in training and to really impress when he gets his chance to come into games.
“Something we are continually working on with Matt is the physical side and making sure he is up to pace with our style of football and up to pace with Championship football.
“We know he has all the quality there but when you have spent a couple of years not having played a huge amount of games, that is a really big challenge.
“Matt has been amazing around the place, he’s been a brilliant signing, and we are really happy to have him.
“He’s challenging for a spot in the side, that’s the way I put it.
“We are not holding him back on account of anything at the moment, he is definitely challenging for a starting place.
“The quicker we can get Matt firing the better.
“We believe he can play anywhere behind the number nine, as a 10 or on either wing.”
A real surprise as Matt Ritchie has always looked after himself and even though he didn’t have a pre-season with Portsmouth after not signing until August, I can’t imagine he wasn’t keeping fit.
Certainly you would think he was still more than fit enough now to be given plenty of minutes as a sub on a regular basis.
