Portsmouth boss John Mousinho Barnsley verdict

The News, Portsmouth

Pompey boss John Mousinho's Barnsley verdict after the impressive 3-2 win at Oakwell.

Transcript

00:00 An eventful night out, well with three points, but a superb first half and a tense second

00:06 half I think.

00:07 Yeah I think tense is probably putting it nicely, putting it politely.

00:11 It was superb in the first half, I think it was the best I think we've played for 45 minutes

00:16 certainly since I've been here.

00:17 We put everything together so we've probably played pretty well but haven't necessarily

00:22 scored the goals.

00:23 Today I think we put Barnsley to the sword in the first half.

00:26 We were excellent, we looked lively, we looked bright, we looked front-footed, very very

00:30 aggressive on the press.

00:31 The only downside was that we didn't go in at half-time 4 or 5-0 up and that would have

00:36 made things a bit more comfortable.

00:38 Second half was flipped on its head and it was very very tense towards the end.

00:41 I think we saw the game out in the last 10 minutes really well.

00:46 Prior to that there were some really really strange things I thought that we did and a

00:49 lot to improve upon.

00:50 So yeah not quite the finished article, we obviously would have loved to come away with

00:54 a comfortable second half here but the most important thing was to win the game and the

00:58 second most important thing was the performance.

01:00 We won the game and we got large elements of the game where the performance was good.

01:03 I don't want to dwell on the negatives much but the second half, what went wrong do you

01:08 feel in that second half?

01:09 Yeah I think there was a combination of things.

01:11 I think first of all Barnsley changed their shape and they brought three players on so

01:16 we had to adapt to that and I thought we adapted to it fairly well.

01:20 But I got to take on board the tactical elements and the shape changes and that was 100% on

01:27 me.

01:28 One of the difficult things at half time is that you don't know what they're going to

01:31 do so it was one of the things we tried to tweak in game.

01:34 And then there were just a few things we didn't do as well as we did in the first half.

01:38 All of a sudden we had players that hadn't given the ball away once in the first half

01:41 and gave the ball away a couple of times sloppily and we didn't make great decisions.

01:45 A couple of things that drove me mad towards the back end of the game were we'd go longer

01:49 and three players would challenge for the same ball and it would drop down and Barnsley

01:51 would break.

01:52 It's the basics of the game that we need to get better at definitely.

01:57 There was also the fact that we have had, it's nice to be able to say this after winning

02:04 the game, but we've had a really difficult four days.

02:05 We've had the travel up to Derby on Friday and a big emotional drain on the players as

02:12 well as physical.

02:13 And then the same again yesterday, a long, long trip up.

02:15 You guys have all made the trip, you know what it's like, it's a long, long way up.

02:19 That's the really good side as well and I think that was a factor towards the back end

02:23 of the game, particularly with players that were coming back from injury, the likes of

02:26 Paddy Lane.

02:27 You had two guys coming back from suspension, particularly in Joe Rasty's case.

02:31 I think he'd been out for three weeks.

02:34 It was one of those things, even when we spoke about Colby, that the weekend Colby just hadn't

02:39 trained up right up until the derby game and was dead on his feet.

02:44 Things we obviously have to improve upon is a professional outfit, but I think a lot of

02:48 it was out of our control.

02:50 If we can roll onto the weekend and get through that, I think we'll be in a really good place.

02:56 Does this send a powerful statement to League One?

02:58 I think so.

02:59 A more powerful statement would have been a nice clean sheet in the second half.

03:04 For us it's just about doing our job and getting on with it and making sure that we tick the

03:09 next box.

03:10 One of the things I spoke to Jordan about at the weekend was we've half ticked a box,

03:16 we've come away to a top side in the league and I thought we largely dominated proceedings.

03:21 We've now come away to a top side and we completely dominated proceedings for 45 and we've won

03:25 the game.

03:26 That was the difference between Saturday and today.

03:27 We did put our chances away.

03:30 There's plenty of things to improve upon, particularly in the second half, but we've

03:36 come away, we've won the game, we were absolutely superb for 45 and the lads fully deserve it.

03:41 On top of the league for the first time for over a year?

03:44 Yes, that's really pleasing.

03:45 I think it's an added bonus.

03:46 It's nice to be there.

03:47 We've obviously played one more game than a couple of the sides, but I think it's a

03:51 good thing.

03:52 We can now try and cement that and really work from there and take a lot of pride in

03:56 the way that we've got there.

03:57 I said to the lads there, it's a culmination of a lot of hard work that's come in since

04:02 I think June 26th when we first came back to training.

04:07 These nights and these results and the rewards that you get are evident.

04:11 You can now link the two and say this is what you get if you work hard and you do the right

04:15 things and you do end up in a good position.

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