Pompey boss wants to sign Luton's former Gunners keeper on a permanent basis

Portsmouth boss John Mousinho has confirmed he is interested in signing Luton keeper Matt Macey on a permanent deal over the summer and is prepared to pay a fee to ensure the deal goes through.

The 28-year-old moved to Fratton Park on loan until the end of the season back in January and has impressed during his brief spell on the south coast, with four clean sheets from seven appearances so far.

Macey, who joined Luton in the summer after signing for an undisclosed fee from Scottish Premier League side Hibernian under previous boss Nathan Jones, played just the once for Town in his second spell at the club, that coming in the 3-2 Carabao Cup defeat to Newport County.

He then lost his place in the first team squad to Harry Isted, agreeing to move to the League One side and speaking to the Portsmouth News about his future, Mousinho said: ‘Matt can absolutely be part of the future here.

‘We’ve had the conversation, not necessarily with him but Joe (Prodomo) and Rich (Hughes) about what we’re looking to with goalkeepers next season.

‘It will probably be more up to Matt than us, in terms of what his situation is and what he can do there.

‘But the very simple answer is he can be a big part of the future here.

‘We like to feed back to the players and what we do know with Matt is that if he can make somewhere his home, he can knuckle down and start clocking up those appearances he maybe hasn’t had in his career over the past 10 years.

“We don’t want players coming down or at the peak of their players.

‘We want players with a huge amount of improvement in them, like Matt.”

Macey’s personal form has coincided with an upturn for Pompey as well, the former FA Cup winners winning four out of the seven games he has started, drawing two and losing one and now 10th, although still 11 points off the top six.

The former Arsenal and Plymouth stopper is already becoming an important part of the side off the pitch too, as Mousinho added: “Matt’s great and fitted in really well so far.

‘I’d say he’s one of the leaders in the dressing room.

‘He’s come in and shown those qualities, which was one of the things he was keen on coming into a dressing room at his age.

‘He’s not held back because he’s loan player coming into the group, he’s come in and imposed himself.

"That’s what we need from players - we need people to come in and lead.

‘He makes good saves and he makes difficult saves look easy.

“Does he command the box and his back four? Absolutely, and he has a big presence in the goal.

“Then can he kick and can he play? He can definitely do both of those.

"If you look at all those things, he ticks all the boxes. That’s the thing to see.”