Pompey v Fulham U21s: John Mousinho's post-match verdict after penalty shoot-out win

The News, Portsmouth

Pompey boss John Mousinho chats to The News after the Blues' EFL Trophy win on penalties against Fulham U21s

Transcript

00:00 So Jon, obviously Saturday, the side were criticised for lack of creativity, lack of

00:05 goals. Tonight we had plenty of goals, plenty of creativity, but were you disappointed you

00:09 didn't score even more goals than the three you did in the three-all draw?

00:12 Oh definitely, I think we could have, you know, we had chances enough to win plenty

00:15 of games and the finishing just wasn't good enough unfortunately in both halves. And there

00:21 were a couple that we were unlucky on, it wasn't every one, we hit the post, we hit

00:24 the bar, the goalkeeper pulled off a couple of brilliant saves, but overall we should

00:27 be scoring a lot more than we did on the night. And yeah, I think the sort of level of finishing

00:33 across the game wasn't good enough.

00:34 I mean, first of all, the creativity, you were happy with that tonight?

00:38 Yeah, oh yeah, particularly in the first half, so when we played against 11 men for the majority

00:43 of it I thought we created quite a few chances, having gone down to the goal early on and

00:46 being disappointed with that, but we came out and played really well. I thought, to

00:51 be honest, in the first half it was a moment of madness, or a minute of madness at the

00:54 start of the half and the same at the back end, and in between that I thought the performance

00:57 was really good. Unfortunately I just don't think we built on that in the second half

01:01 and created a lot of chances, creativity was there, but the overall performance, particularly

01:06 in the second 45, I didn't think was necessarily where we needed to be.

01:09 I mean, obviously compared to Saturday, it was 11 new players against an under-21 side,

01:15 so it's difficult to compare isn't it really?

01:17 Yeah, there's no comparison that we need to make between the league game and obviously

01:21 the EFL trophy. I think we still want to keep standards high in terms of the lads that come

01:26 in and play and they've obviously got to be pushing for starting places as well. So that's

01:32 the whole point of changing the 11s, because we think we come with a really, really strong

01:36 side here tonight and I thought it was a side that should have been strong enough to win

01:39 the game. Judging on what I saw tonight, I still think the side had more than enough

01:42 to win the game, but we obviously didn't do quite enough to get there.

01:46 Was Sean Raggett, that second goal, surely an early goal of a seasoned contender?

01:50 Yeah, I think so. I think it took everybody by surprise. Sean's a really good finisher

01:55 actually and he does quite a bit after training, so it was no huge shock for us to see him

02:00 score that. Yeah, but really pleased for Sean to get the brace. I suppose the only downside

02:06 of that is that we had to rely on our centre-half to score that 40-yard screamer in the top

02:09 corner to, I suppose, dig ourselves out of it in a way, because apart from that, second

02:15 half especially, we just couldn't finish anything.

02:17 Did you actually criticise the players for the lack of scoring as many chances tonight

02:22 as they had or did you say to them, 'look, at least you created them'?

02:25 I think it was a bit of both. I think at least they created the chances, that's good, but

02:30 some of the chances that we had, I didn't think we were clinical enough in terms of

02:35 the way we just went about trying to finish it. I don't know if I'm quite coming across

02:39 right there, but I thought we were a bit sloppy in our finishing and that is where I think

02:44 I can be critical. I think if we do the right things and the goalkeeper makes a save or

02:49 for whatever reason it hits the post, there's a block, whatever it is, then fine. I just

02:53 don't think we were ruthless and clinical enough and just got a bit sloppy and I think

02:56 that's spilled into the rest of our play as well.

02:58 How can you be more ruthless and clinical?

03:01 Ultimately it's about mindset and making sure that when you do go into those situations

03:07 you don't get too complacent. You might get chance after chance in certain games, but

03:11 it's not going to happen every week. It's about mindset, it's about practice as well.

03:16 We do a huge amount of practice with that and ultimately it's about the ones that do

03:19 put the ball in the back of the net when they get the chance. They'll ultimately be the

03:24 ones that go on and have those successful careers. There's plenty of players that have

03:29 had a lot of chances created for them and haven't managed to put them in the back of

03:31 the net. So it's something we need to learn and learn quickly.

03:34 Obviously the transfer window closes in eight or nine days' time. You've been linked again

03:38 with Andrew in. What's the situation there?

03:41 The links come from nothing to do with us at our end. So I'm not entirely sure where

03:46 it's come from. We've had no further developments there in terms of what's going to happen.

03:49 Obviously Tino is an exciting player that we know a huge amount about and we spoke about

03:54 previously. But as far as we're concerned we didn't really know where that came from.

03:58 Is interest finished in him now?

04:00 Not necessarily finished, but I suppose when we saw the news story there was nothing from

04:05 our end. There's still maybe a bit we can do in terms of the rest of the transfer window

04:10 and if Tino is an option then I'm sure we'll be able to explore it.

04:13 So it's not over yet then?

04:14 No, I don't think we're going to rule anything out at the moment. We're not coming to you

04:20 saying that story has come from us and we're really pushing that. We'll see how that pans

04:27 out I suppose.

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